What can quail not eat?

[CuteQuail]

What can quail not eat thats outside. For example dirt, plants, and bugs because they pretty much eat everything they see. Also on a side note, sometimes I see my quail poke their heads up in the air and they open their mouth and looks like are trying to swallow something. What are they doing? If I leave quail on soil, will they get a virus or a parasite?

 

[CuteQuail]

Also I have a question. If quail lay their own eggs, can they fertilize them and incubate them until they hatch and will they take care of the new quail?

 

[Lady_Bat]

We raise our quail on the ground in a moveable coop/run set up. Having access to fresh grass, plants, bugs, etc is how mother nature intended (not confined to a small cage in my humble opinion). In the Fall they really loved being moved into our garden (lots of plants they hadn't experienced before). As far as I know, there shouldn't be an issue just in your yard. Check the chicken section for poisonous plants, wouldn't hurt to follow the same rules. Also, weed killer is a no-no.

As far as parasites & viruses, you are always going to run that risk unless you keep them in a completely sterile environment. You can't stop wild birds from pooping in your yard & you can't stop other animals from pooping there either. We're on a farm in the middle of no where, it's a risk that we've accepted. Since they have short lives & we haven't noticed sickly behavior, we don't bother doing anti parasite medication.

The heads in the air, mouth open thing...do they look like they're breathing fast? Like hyperventilating with a swallowing motion? That sounds like stress, maybe over heating, but most likely stress. We've seen ours do that when they are super freaked out (first day in the coop, they missed their brooder for a few hours) & more of a panting action when it got over 100 degrees in the shade (frozen veggies, frozen water bottles both helped them get through the heat).

For eggs....Do you have males & females? Make sure you have the proper ratios to avoid fighting & too much love making. Assuming you're good on that, yes they can fertilize their eggs. What breed do you have? We have Jumbo/Coturnix & ours at least have no interest in going broody/hatching eggs or looking after wee ones. I'd suggest you collect the eggs & incubate them yourself if you're looking to maintain your flock that way.

 

[CuteQuail]

Well I incubated my own Corturnix Quail and I think I got a little unlucky. I'm pretty sure I have one female and four males. Will that cause problems? I'm not completely sure though. Any good ways to know what sex they are? My quail are about five weeks old.

 

[Fishkeeper]

Yes, that will absolutely cause problems. You need 1 male to roughly 3 females, not the other way around.
You can post in this thread with pictures and we can try to sex them for you.

 

[Lady_Bat]

Oh lord, that poor girl! I think the proper ration is 4-5 females for 1 male. The guys can/will wear the lady out & the boys will fight like crazy. We started with 50 (non sexed), lost a few to Murphy's law, & ended up with 20 boys in the end. Around 8 weeks they hit sexual maturity. The males started fighting really bad, bald patches on everyone. We would walk into the run & they would attack us for no reason. Mind you they ate out of our hands & loved on us before hitting sexual maturity. The ladies were being "loved" on way too much, bald necks, lots of running & screaming (like omg, makes you upset to hear it screaming). I can not explain just how terrible it was.

16 of the boys went to freezer camp, 2 of the boys are special needs (one has wry neck, one has bad knees so he uses his wings to wattle about), the 2 boys that got a reprieve were sweet & I just couldn't kill any more after 16. So we now have 23 ladies, 4 guys, & life is calm.

Look at their chests. If it's a solid rust/golden brown color, then it's a boy. If it's more of a cream color with dark brown spots, it's a girl.

 

[CuteQuail]

So I only have one quail with the black dots on its chest and four other quail with the rusty color.

 

[CuteQuail]

 

[Fishkeeper]

Yeah, looks like a male in the top pic and a female in the bottom.

You're gonna have to decide which of those quail you want to keep. You may be able to keep a pen of only male quail if they have no females around to fight over or over-mate. If you want eggs, keep the female and your calmest male, get rid of the other males, and figure out how to add some females. Someone on Craigslist may be selling extras. Or you could just get a LOT of other females, because for 4 males, you should probably have at least 16 females.

 

[Lady_Bat]

Those are great pictures!!! I'm sorry to hear about your ratio though. The top one is definitely a boy & the bottom one is definitely a girl. Can you buy some already hatched quail from somewhere? From what I understand, if the boys can see/hear/smell,/sense a lady, they will fight. Also, they are not solitary birds. So keeping the lady alone isn't an option. I don't recall who/what thread but someone said that you should never keep less than 4 Coturnix because they are flock birds.