#quail keeping

[thewildyonder]

I got 3 eggs today! That means the "wild" & ancient Bobwhite quail I caught is giving me these tiny white eggs now. I've decided to call her Sarah because she looks like she's 90 . It's a miracle 😂🙌🏻

[nirinart]

My quails!!! 💖✨

i have five quails and i love them very much, and when they stretch, they look like bowling pins 🎳

[comicdiaries]

The pecking order is serious business.

[foxstew]

We got this tiny egg the day after a giant double yolk monstrosity and I expected it to have no yolk at all but instead was gifted with the tiniest yolk imaginable

[thewildyonder]

I was side tracked by sick babies holidays and an anniversary so I haven't updated on my quails at all. B did a good job caring for them while I was at the hospital and I still have 6 healthy little screamers. They're getting grown up feathers now too.

[calico-cows]

PSA: don’t handle your quail right after they drank a ton of water or they’ll spit it up. Scared the crap out of me, also my pants are wet now

[calico-cows]

Does anyone have experience raising coturnix quail in an aviary? What’s a good number of hens per sq foot? Will they get territorial?

[agardeninwales-blog]

Demise of a Quail

Our eight Japanese quail have been settling well into their new home despite a couple of spectacular escapes early on - one vertically out of the box to the bemusement of Humphrey, who observed them with gusto for the better part of an hour, and another from one of the many tiny holes that quickly became apparent around the base of the raspberry cage.

At the moment they are being fed on chick crumbs until I can find the higher protein quail feed that they'll require, with a one-gallon self-watering device and a tin baking dish that they seem to love sitting in once they've flung the crumbs about. A rabbit feeder should remedy the wastage and ensure that they always have enough to eat, when I can find one in the shops.

These tiny quail are gentle, cheerful creatures, whose subtle cheeps make a delightful song while one is trying to catch and coax them into becoming tame, or while taking a dust bath in the exposed soil, ruffling their feathers and basking in each other's warmth, or chasing the last rays of sun to the uppermost corner of the raspberry cage in the late afternoon.

Sadly, a bird of prey claimed the life of one of the two tan-throated cockerels today (Japanese quails being most content at a ratio of three hens to one cockerel). It is supposed that after a watchful recce on their habits -snuggling up against the chicken wire, bedding down in the strawberry bed's old dusty hay - either a kestrel or a kite executed a deft swoop and the poor little quail literally got it in the neck. He was found by a friend's daughter, his body still warm, where the netting was pulled out but not broken, and given a burial in the woods.

Now there is one cockerel to six hens and a problem to fix. I think if we can edge the cage with a foot-high boarding at the bottom or a thick pond-liner like material, we can protect the remaining quail from falling victim to the kites and kestrels. I hope they are alright in their little house tonight.

Male quail, seven weeks old, RIP.