# Quails as pets



## sozzle

Does anyone here know anything about keeping quails as pets? we have finally allowed our daughter who has been saving up over the last year to get two or possibly three. We are just looking at cages at the moment and they will be kept indoors.
Is there anything that we need to be aware of like do they really need worming every 3 months as the blurb at petshop says or is that only if they are free range?

If we get a male and female will they necessarily breed, will the eggs be fertile and should be take them away if they do lay eggs (unless of course we want more) etc.

I realise there are many different types of quail and the ones we will be getting won't be the Californian large type but the small ones.

Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks


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## xchairity_casex

What breed are you thinking of specifically?
i raised Button Quail for 2 years-indoors i bred them, hatched them myself.

Button Quail are the smallest species of quail and are the most common to be sold in petstores, so im assuming thats the breed your looking into.

Make sure you buy male/female pair and not accedentally get 2 males or 2 females- button quail WILL kill eachother, alot of times youll find breeders who say its "okay" to house them in colonies of 1 male to several females, this is untrue. if you have a breeder telling you this simply ask to lok at there breeding birds raised in colonies and ask about there average birds lifespan.
youll end up seeing birds with bald backs, open or scabby wounds, missing feathers, and youll hear the average lifespan to be less then a year.
then this breeder is a poor breeder who doesnt understand buttons much.

the average lifespan of buttons is only about 2-3 years, short but not 6 months short. the best time to get the birds is just before they begin laying so you can choose the mate and have them longer take them at about 6 weeks, at this age they have featherd up enough to tell males from females and females have not yet choosen there mates.

When you go, make sure you know how to identify a male from a female- its pretty easy actually, simply pick them up and turn them over, male birds will have rusty red/chocolate colored feathers on there butt around the vent (unless the bird is pure white,splashed or silver. white birds and splashed birds can only be detirmind male from teh crow sound they make and silvers have a light tan colored vent feathers like a washed out red)
females will have grey-tan colored vent feathers that match the tummy feathers.

yes, if you have male/female quail together, the eggs will be fertile and they will lay an egg a day, sometiems every other or every few days. but no worries its EXTREMLY rare for buttons to hatch there own eggs.
but if you worry you can simply take the eggs out as they are laid, i used to take mine out and feed them raw to my dog he loved them!

Buttons eat game bird crumble just fine BUT! they NEED a calcium supplement to go along with it, i used to buy cuttle bones and stick in each birds cage, some people will say that they cannot eat them but trust me they can and will! a single pair of my birds would go thru a whole cuttle bone in 2 weeks down to nothing they enjoyed them alot. i liked giving them the cuttle bones as oppose to mixing calcium powder into the food because i didnt want to give too much so i let them dcid how much they needed on there own.

Buttons cant perch and SHOULD NOT be housed on wire but solid wood shavings or, what i liked using was rabbit pellets, they smelled nice and the birds would sometiems eat them.

NO, you def donot have to worm them unless they came from the outdoors. i never wormed mine who were indoors only and they were fine, no worms.

as far as being pets, they donot make good pets unless all you want is a pet to watch. they are not handilble, they freak out and yes they CAN FLY! and will fly right up out of your hands and run from you.
i incubated and hatched my own eggs and raised them holding them daily from the time they hatched and i never had one who enjoyed being pets or touched much, they dont mind when they are tiny puff balls, but once htey reach a certian age its as if one day they are terrified of you. i even hand raised a single chick, she bonded to me as a chick till about 3 weeks and suddenly i was the most frigtening thing shed ever seen.
so dont bother stressing them out by attempting to hand-tame them. one of my females (whom had been hatched and hand reared by me, being held daily and hand fed) one day when she was about 4 months old i reached in to pick them out and cleaned the cage like i did every few days and she paniced so badly her insides came outside and didnt go back in (is a real issue) and they dried out no matter how i tried to push them back in and keep them moist- she died.

if your loking for Quail to be real sweet handible pets- i have heard wonderful things about cortunix quial, they are (from what i have heard) very easily hand tamed and freindly when raised singly.

P.S you NEED a tight fititng lid/ top for Buttons since htey can fly and do somthing called "popcorning" where they hop up real fast and hard and bang there heads on the top of the cage. so a tight fitting lid/top is a MUST!

and well, because i love pictures, heres a few pictures of my own buttons i raised, i incubated and hatched 4 generations.


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## Sprocket

A friend of mine has them for 4h and shows. Thats about all I know, other than they are delicious.


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## sozzle

Thanks very much xchairity for all your very informative info. By the time I had typed this up my husband and daughter had gone out and purchased 2 quails (not sure what type but small so maybe button) and cage etc. They are currently set up in her bedroom and the female laid an egg in the shop so we gave it to Stanley. We have been reading up and are feeding them various things, like the seed recommended, greens from garden, corn on the cob and today I got them a cuttle fish bone.
They have somewhere to hide in their cage which is quite large when we walk into room and it is a shame they don't 'get used to being handled as I think that is what my daughter wanted to achieve.
Well they are very cute and their chirping is very quiet. The dog keeps sniffing the air when he goes into her room but can't quite work out what it is as they are high up on a chest of drawers.
We will see how it goes.
cheers


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## xchairity_casex

sozzle said:


> Thanks very much xchairity for all your very informative info. By the time I had typed this up my husband and daughter had gone out and purchased 2 quails (not sure what type but small so maybe button) and cage etc. They are currently set up in her bedroom and the female laid an egg in the shop so we gave it to Stanley. We have been reading up and are feeding them various things, like the seed recommended, greens from garden, corn on the cob and today I got them a cuttle fish bone.
> They have somewhere to hide in their cage which is quite large when we walk into room and it is a shame they don't 'get used to being handled as I think that is what my daughter wanted to achieve.
> Well they are very cute and their chirping is very quiet. The dog keeps sniffing the air when he goes into her room but can't quite work out what it is as they are high up on a chest of drawers.
> We will see how it goes.
> cheers


while yes they do enjoy seed and they can eat it, if all they get is seed and veggies they will die at a very young age- these birds are omnivores, living on a diet mostly of bugs with some seeds mixed in they will need gamebird crumble. its cheap at one time i had 36 buttons and a 20 pound bag of gamebird crumble lasted 4 months.

i must warn you, i wouldntkeep them too near the bedrooms where you sleep, males tend to do most of their crowing between 4am and 9 am-loudly! heres a video i tok of one of my males crowing.





The thing about buttons is, theres ALOT of conflicting information about them over the internet. ive seen people keeping them on wire, houseing them in colonies, feeding them a seed only diet, saying they are sexualy mature at 7 weeks.

none of that is true. i was lucky, i bought my buttons as eggs from a breeder in florida who is good freinds with Jodi Mcdonald. Jodi and her husband own bracken ridge ranch and are leading experts on Button quails.
i was able to talk directly with Jodi thru e-mails and phone calls and learned alot about Buttons.

have a look at Jodis website for GOOD information about there care and if you ever have anyproblems you can contact her, shes extremly helpful!
Bracken Ridge Ranch


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