Quail

We have nine button quail. Two of the button quail, Virgil and Becca, came to us from the pet store Tabitha used to manage after Becca lost the use of her legs and Virgil suffered a severe head injury. The seven other button quail were hatched from eggs Tabitha put in the incubator.

Button Quail

The button quail live in finch breeding cages. They don’t play with toys and they prefer to be on the ground so they don’t need high places to perch on. Tabitha gives each quail a box and fake plants to hide in. They are timid birds and when spooked, they will jump straight up into the top of their cage. We have screen material attached to the inside of the cages near the top bars so when they jump, they have protection from hitting their head on the hard wire and so they don’t get their little heads caught in the wire and hang themselves.

Coturnix Quail

Our coturnix quail, Shiva, crossed Rainbow Bridge in March, 2020. Shiva’s joyful calling is especially missed in the morning. He used to wake us up bright and early every day. The house seems a bit too quiet without his wakeup calls.

Shiva was adopted from the pet store Tabitha used to manage. He lived in a Midwest Interactive Guinea Habitat Plus enclosure. He had a screen covering on the top of his cage so he didn’t hit his head on the hard wires. Before we put the screen on his cage, he hit his head so hard that he scalped himself. We didn’t have that problem again since the screen was installed.

Habitat

We use aspen wood shavings in all of the quail cages. We’ve tried different types of bedding, but we found the wood shavings do a better job of keeping the cages cleaner. The girls enjoy building nests with the shavings and the shavings keep the eggs nice and clean.

Food

All of the quail are fed a high protein gamebird crumble. They also get a calcium supplement, bird grit, millet, bird seed, and fresh salad greens.