Quail

[123456 146]

Was wondering if anyone else keeps quail? Have Chinese painted, Italian, Japanese, American bobtail and a harlequin cock bird. Just wanted some advice as I'm new to them.

[shroob 9]

I kept them (Italian) when I lived in England. They're easy enough to keep, just make sure any enclosure has head room, they can be quite skittish and fly vertically upwards from time to time. The enclosure I had them in was about 8-10ft tall and they still hit their heads on the top when they were spooked.

 

Males can also be fairly viscious to females, so if you're only after them for the eggs, which are tiny (but they do lay every day usually), consider females only.

 

There's plenty of info online about keeping them.

[RubyTex 1,957]

Keep 5 chinese in a rabbit hutch, 4 hens and a cock bird. Lay plenty of eggs, keeping them in a hutch means less damage if they ever did fly upwards. Not seen them do that once though, the enclosed space keeps them on the ground i guess.

[123456 146]

Wanted to breed a few out of interest and hatch a few young and cheers gents. Had em a week and they're still alive so can't be doing to much wrong

[RubyTex 1,957]

In my experience you can't do much wrong...a clean out and some fresh straw once every couple of weeks, food & water everyday and you're done. Very easy to keep happy.

[Moll. 1,793]

Don't forget their greens, gather chick weed and give the lettuce, they go potty for it.

[Ratreeper 441]

I bought some by mistake before at an autction, no-one was bidding so I raised my hand for 50p to get things going and won. So I had 12 little japanese quails for 50p, which I kept for a while and fed to my hawk. I did feel bad though they are funny and cute little buggers.