Quails....or my little meep meeps....

[Kath/Gaz]

At the show yesterday we bought two little silver button quails....who are sitting beside me....meep meeping away....as soon as the aviary is finished they will be going outdoor....and they were raised in an outdoor aviary.....when I asked the person how old they were I got an "Uuuummmm 9 months I think".....they have a little box to hide in and I will put up pictures of them tomorrow with a picture of their little feet....as they both have some sort of growth on them.....they are on a diet of chick feed mixed with a quail feed, grit, water, and today apple and cucumber....with a spray of millet hanging up which Mrs. thinks is great fun to bat around and then eat.....have I forgotten anything else at the moment.....she has already given us her first egg yesterday when we brought her home....so would a cuttle bone be a good idea....I think tomorrow will be hard boiled egg with the shell as a treat.....and they are in this cage at the moment so should I let them out to play in a "safe area" until aviary is finished.....this is an old picture but I have taken out the wire bottom and they are on soft wood shaving.....

Attachments:

[Bird Junky]

Hi As this is a budgie site, I take it you intend to put them in an aviary of budgies. if so you will find the budgies will intimidate the
grouse until they die. A popular way of keeping Buttons, (Chinese Painted Quail) is one pr, in a 3ft fish tank. Decorated with grass to resemble moorland with a few hidey holes. they will eat the same
diet as Budgies. A cage would be a waste of space as they only run around. Yours B.J.

[gerwynmr2]

sounds like you have it sorted cage looks a bit small but as a temporary measure should be ok,as for giving them hard boiled egg,just boil up the eggs they lay and feed back to them this is what i do,as for budgies intimidating cpquail i havn't had this problem and they all seem to be happy together

[nat]

I have 3 quail in my indoor aviary. I was told the budgies might harass them but they never have. I do make sure there are plenty of low cardboard boxes on the floor for the quail to go in. Haribo and shoe boxes are great:) I place them 3 boxes together in a circle with just a small entrance between each one. In the boxes I place the quails water and layers pellets and a bowl of sand. This layout stops the budgies pooping in the quails water, eating the layers pellets which they are rather partial to and lets the quail hens have somewhere to escape to:) In one box I place a round nest of fine hay for laying.
I use oyster shell grit as well as bird sand which has the insoluble grit in. The oyster shell gives them an extra calcium source:) I have supplied cuttlebone before but find it just gets pooped on and not ever pecked at! Mine are a bit spoilt and get calcivet in their water once a week, but they are laying machines lol and one can even lay 2 eggs within a day!
They love dampened budgie eggfood as well.
As they are back indoors now for a bit it will be important to reacclimatise them to the outdoors again. Usually putting them out in the aviary during the day and bringing them in at night especially if minus temps are forecast. Or if you can lay your hands on an old rabbit hutch then it can be bedded up well with a good amount of fine hay, straw and shreaded paper for them to snuggle into. At least then they can avoid draughts if you have to leave them out at night:)
I think there is an antibiotic in chick crumbs/pellets which means the quail eggs shouldn't be eaten if they are fed these. The layers pellets for chickens are safe, but I find are a little big for them, so I stick them in the blender quicky to break them up a bit.
They are really so amusing especially when they have a bit of cucumber to chuck around

[Captain Howdy]

I don't know anyone who keeps Quail in a fish tank, Quail actually need a fair bit of height in their enclosure as when spooked they shoot into the air straight up and if not tall enough they hit the roof and break their necks.

they also should not be fed solely on seed as it is not a good diet for them.

Our CPQ were always fed on a mix of chick crumb and quail layers pellets, oyster shell grit, bird grit, insect and fruit softfood, fresh veg and whatever seeds the other birds dropped. Plus mealworms as a treat.

You can keep them with Budgies but just ensure they have plenty of places to hide and monitor them carefully to ensure the Budgies do not bully them. Would not house them with Budgies in a cage however so if they ever need to be caged up again remember to keep them separate from other birds.

[Hezz]

Any bird kept in a fish tank sounds very wrong to me! Seems as though Nat and C'pt Howdy have a goody amount of experience with these with lots of good points to avoid problems in the future. I know Nat's birds are very spoilt, given everything possible to make their lives wonderful and I am sure Cpt Howdy's are too.

[Bird Junky]

Mar 6, 2012 0:28:38 GMT Hezz said:

Any bird kept in a fish tank sounds very wrong to me! Seems as though Nat and C'pt Howdy have a goody amount of experience with these with lots of good points to avoid problems in the future. I know Nat's birds are very spoilt, given everything possible to make their lives wonderful and I am sure Cpt Howdy's are too.

Hi The idea of keeping quail in a fish tank. is that its better than a birdcage for a budgie. A place to keep them when they're not running around playing with their owner just like budgies..
Re headroom. This also applies in cages. I thought everyone knew that.
So we all agree then that budgies do (& their not the only ones) harass & stress, CPQ's. Hence their suggestions of providing plenty of cover & hiding places. But it doesn't really help the CPQ. Being a ground bird they are the normal prey of many flying birds species. Yours B.J.

[s25ale]

Hi Kath & Gaz, congratulations on the new additions I have 6 chinese painted quail in the bottom of my budgies and have never had a problem, in fact i've even found a budgie chick under the wing of my quail being kept warm after it had left the nestbox

[Bird Junky]

Hi If you log on to any site for Foreign Birds & ask about mixing

CPQ's. There are many posts about stress & death caused by

budgies to CPQ. YES, I know there are exceptions. The problem is

if & when you find dead CPQ chicks, & or adults. Who are you

going to blame? WE are supposed to look after our birds, not put

them in a potentially dangerous situation. Just because it looks

nice in the aviary

Could it be that some mixers don't realise what a stressed

CPQ looks or sounds like? Yours B.J.

[Captain Howdy]

Mar 6, 2012 7:56:21 GMT Bird Junky said:

So we all agree then that budgies do (& their not the only ones) harass & stress, CPQ's. Hence their suggestions of providing plenty of cover & hiding places.

No I don't agree, I provide my Quail with plenty of hiding places regardless of whether they are in their own aviary or a mixed one, it is a basic need for them.
I would never keep a Bird in a fish tank except in the case of a brooder to keep the heat in, they are not ventilated well enough to be a perminant house for a bird, birds will fly into the sides of them thinking they can just fly through. Totally unacceptable in my opinion.

I have not ever had a problem with any my Quail being harrassed by the birds, I have said not to house them in a cage together as this is too close quarters for a lot of species to mix in, when I have to catch all mine up for whatever reason each species have their own cages.

Any bird can bully another bird same species or different it is about how you manage them.

I am well aware of the signs of a stressed bird and I have had mine breed in a mixed aviary, plenty of parent reared birds, they would not sit and rear chicks if they felt stressed and harrased.

[Hezz]

Sorry, BJ some of your comments don't really make much sense, you are taking things out of context.

[Kath/Gaz]

Thank you for all your help and advice.....they are only in the cage for a short time and when the weather is better then we will put them in the outside aviary during the day and return them to their cage at night until the inside part of the aviary is finished.....but there is no budgies in the cage with them....and there will be no budgies in the outside aviary until late April/ early May.....

Attachments:

[Bird Junky]

Hi OK Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. I tend to try to speak for the birds. their welfare is No1 with me. I don't mean or want to offend anybody.. Yours B.J.

[nat]

My birds welfare is always paramount with me as well B.J. I was told origionally that budgies would harrass the cpq so initially held off from adding them to the aviary. I even recall on the basis of that advice, telling somebody else the same!
Initially I took advice from cpq breeders who told me to keep several cpq hens to one cock. In fact the cpq did more damage to each other with one hen slicing chunks out of the other hens and cock! So I did what was not recommended, split them into 2 pairs and a trio (the trio being in the aviary)
I find the 3 in the aviary very happy, lay well, have no feathers missing, don't boing and bang their heads etc. Possibly as the budgies always have plenty of things going on to entertain them at a high up level means they are not interested in the quail. Also the budgies are fed at a different floor level to the quail so need not go to the floor to get food. The person who initially told me that budgies would bully the quail fed and watered all the birds from trays on the floor. My hens will even try to incubate their eggs in the aviary which as CaptainHowdy says, they would certainly not do unless they were comfortable.
The other 2 pairs are in long rabbit hutches with lights fitted so its not too dark for them. To prevent damage to their heads if they boing there is foam padding on the ceiling of the hutches. They do need quite a bit of room to run and excercise in and having 2 sections of the rabbit hutches make cleaning out easy as they can go into one section while I clean the other meaning that they never get scared and boing.
I'd imagine the practicalities of cleaning out a fishtank might make problems. ie removing the lid and approaching from the top would most certainly scare the quail. It would also make them difficult to catch without losing one! Also having the bare glass sides may make them feel vunerable and it would need to be an enormous tank to be putting boxes and hidey places in. CaptainHowdys point on ventilation is also very valid.
By the way, when I say having hidey places for them to escape to..... I do not mean that they are having to escape the budgies! I meant that they can escape to the quiet to lay eggs, find their food, escape the UVB lights, and escape me when I am in the aviary! They like dark places as we know so will appreciate some dark hidey places to 'escape to'.
Kath/Gaz I love the colours of your quail. I've kept quail in a cage as a temporary measure before after my naughty cpq hen brutalised her friends so they had wounds to recover from!

[Hezz]

Very good post, Nat!