What is my quail doing?

[danielb1990]

Hi lately one of my quail is being a slight pain and was wondering if this normal behavior
I have a small cat dish i use to put "treat" food in like seed and lately one of them when i put seed in starts digging through it and scratching it onto the floor not sure if same one but one also "patrols" the side of the box sometimes jumping at gaps to try escape the pen and pecks at stuff alot like when i put seed box in it pecks it like trying to defend or something

 

[mdees88]

Sounds normal to me...

What kind of quail?

Male or female?

 

[danielb1990]

Japanese sort and not 100% but think 1 male 1 female as i find 1 egg every now and then and one has red patch under the spotted part

 

[Fishkeeper]

Give them a sandbox/dustbath to play with and see if it helps at all. Also, give them some brush to hide under.
Japanese quail are coturnix. They should be kept in groups with at least 4 females for every male, preferably more.

 

[RosieR]

I had one that would bathe in the food bowl and would spill everything everywhere. My short term fix is a sandbox and it has worked. I’m going to rig up something better to hold the food also. They just like to scratch and bathe so you just need to direct that behaviour to the appropriate place

 

[danielb1990]

they had a dustbath which they use since hatched and reason for low numbers is those 2 only ines lived after hatching

 

[Acre4Me]

Normal behavior for quail.

When I give them treats, I use a rectangular and shallow plastic container with a lid. The lid has the center cut out- leaving a lip around the interior edge. They can’t scrape out or spill the treat (although occasionally one will sit in the box) because of the lip. They cannot flip over the container because it is shallow. This container is similar to what prepackaged lunch meat (12-16 ounce?) comes in at the grocery store.