Will this quail house work?

[birdluvr]

My plans are to have 9 button quail in a 32sq ft wooden box with pine shavings and a 24sqft run. Is that enough room. Also? I have chicken in the same area/ 15-20 ft apart. Would disease be transmitted?

 

[DK newbie]

In general keeping more than one male button in the same enclosure will eventually cause some kind of trouble, if the enclosure has females as well. So if your group contains more than one male you'd be be better of splitting the enclosure and keeping the birds in pairs or trios or simply splitting the sexes so you have one enclosure with all females and one with all males.

There are people who keep large groups of mixed sexes in aviaries, but they do have trouble as well - they keep so many birds that usually anyone getting picked on can hide from the bully, but still they have females with bare backs and such.

 

[birdluvr]

DK Newbie, will they be hostile to each other when they are raised together.

 

[DK newbie]

Indeed they will - if there are females around. I had a group of 8 young roos turn on their father when they were 8-9 weeks old. They didn't seriously hurt him before I got them out of there, but his face was slightly swollen and partly featherless. The father the only one visibly affected, but I think that's because he looked different (tuxedo, the sons were normal colored). Right now I have two roos of about 10 weeks living with their parents and they attack both each other and their father - and their father attacks them. They haven't hurt each other yet - if it wasn't for the fact they live in my living room I probably wouldn't even have noticed, but they definitely aren't happy and I strongly suspect it's the same in the large community aviaries some people have - even if they are not visibly hurt, they are stressed by each others presence.

 

[birdluvr]

Sorry if this sounds cheeky, but were those Roos raised with their father? How many Sq Ft for your quail do you use? Thanks for the help! That's one tough Roo 8 against one.. not seriously hurt

 

[DK newbie]

The parents raised them, yes. I don't own an incubator, my buttons hatch and raise their own chicks. In the case with 8 roos (from 9 chicks, seriously what's the odds?) it was in a 3x10 ft aviary. The parents did a great job, but come maturity the male chicks were not the slightest bit grateful to dad anymore Usually I try to remove the chicks at around 6 weeks, but in this case the birds lived with my parents and I live in the other end of the country - I wasn't there to remove them before they were 9 weeks old.
In the case of my 2 10-week roos still living with the parents, the enclosure is 2x4 ft. I should have removed them, the issue here is a lack of cages/convenience.. Anyway, one is being sold one of the next days, if the other one isn't I'm probably going to give it to a colleague as snake feed. The mother has already gone broody again, I just hope I can remove the young roos without stressing her off the nest.

 

[birdluvr]

I have 9 chicks too! Hope that won't happen:/
i'm confused aren't they monogamous or in colonies do they interbreed without pairs
Just an opinionated question, should I breed them in their specific colors? The guy I got the quail from had them with colonies and I have some wacky looking quail
A tuxedo with golden pearl feathers instead of black and a random barred rock (chicken breed) looking quail with grey instead of white and a wild colored with orange instead of light brown


Do you use trios? The reason I got these quail as chicks is because they're supposed to be pets and the kids get too attached so I can't have the right amount to pair

 

[donut314]

My plans are to have 9 button quail in a 32sq ft wooden box with pine shavings and a 24sqft run. Is that enough room. Also? I have chicken in the same area/ 15-20 ft apart. Would disease be transmitted?

9 button quails in a 32 sq ft? That's like a 4 ft by 8 ft enclosure. And you're asking if that's enough? I say of course! I house 20 jumbo quails in a 4X8 and they were fine. Button quails are much smaller and will enjoy that much space. There's room to expand your flock. Just remember to keep a good male to female ratio. I keep mine at 1 male to 4-5 females and they get along good. My most dominant females don't like new comers so be careful when introducing new birds - don't like as in will kill new comers.

I haven't kept quails with chicken, but I have kept quails with pigeons. They are living well together. As for chicken, I think they should be fine as long as they are in separate pens. I'm not too worry about disease being spread (cuz I believe you should keep all your birds disease free as much as possible anyways), I'm more worry about the chicken picking on the quails if they are in the same pen.

 

[DK newbie]

I have 9 chicks too! Hope that won't happen:/
i'm confused aren't they monogamous or in colonies do they interbreed without pairs
Just an opinionated question, should I breed them in their specific colors? The guy I got the quail from had them with colonies and I have some wacky looking quail
A tuxedo with golden pearl feathers instead of black and a random barred rock (chicken breed) looking quail with grey instead of white and a wild colored with orange instead of light brown


Do you use trios? The reason I got these quail as chicks is because they're supposed to be pets and the kids get too attached so I can't have the right amount to pair

They are supposed to be monogamous, but I think the colony setting is preventing them from forming proper pair bonds and I don't think the males are respecting the pairs that might exist - they will try to rape any female if they feel like it. Not saying they are going to successfully mate with an unwilling female, but the fact that they try is likely to cause pulled feathers, head wounds and stress.
With regards to breeding them in their colors, I'd do my best not to. The more similar their colors are, the more likely they are to be related. Also, golden pearl is a lethal mutation - pairing two golden pearls will give you 25% chicks that won't live.
Post some pictures, I'd love to see your wacky birds

I do use trios, but in my experience the hens actually tend to cause trouble when kept in trios if they have too little room - with 2x5 ft for a trio being 'too little'. I kept a trio in such a cage. The two females were raised together but as spring came and they started laying, one turned on the other.
I then moved them to the 3x10 ft aviary and haven't had any issues since - they raised the '8 roos from 9 chicks' batch together, both hens - and the roo - caring for the chicks even though only one hen was broody.
Thinking I was just unlucky they couldn't live together in a cage, I recently tried introducing a young female to a pair. Kept her right beside them for about 10 days, then introduced her. Everything was well for several weeks. Then the young hen started laying. Shortly after I saw her chasing the older hen. The next day I got home from work, the back of the older hen had been pecked clean of feathers, even had a little blood. Separated them to let the feathers regrow and reintroduced. Seemingly no issues, but I think it was just a matter of time before it repeated. Sadly the older hen had an issue with a leg - she hardly used it. I didn't notice when separating them, so I'm not exactly sure whether it happened during the feather picking or during the separation. 3 weeks later it wasn't better though so I gave the older hen peace and will never know for sure whether the picking would have happened again.
So I would say there is a tendency towards trios causing trouble - but with 10 sqft per bird it seems to be fine. I have read about people keeping trios on much less space than that without problems though, I would just be very careful with assuming it will work.

 

[birdluvr]