FINCHforum

Put 9 coturnix eggs into our little homemade incubator today. We had bought 10, but one turned out to be badly cracked.

Hatch rate on these will probably be very low as they're already a week old, but we'll see! I'm surprised how low maintenance these are compared to finch eggs.

Brooder at the ready with all the trimmings in the warmest room in the house, and deep cleaning the hutch as we speak! I hope they won't go empty for long.

Good day,

I hadn't realized that you had ordered them already.

Where did they come from?

Did you get your new brooder, or are you still using the home made contraption?

Just curious, but what had you deciding on Quail?
Although they are absolutely adorable babies, they tend to multiply like rabbits, and come with their own set of problems (ask Mark Dramoth from Auzzie land).

I picked them up locally, from a company called Kultamuna (Golden egg)

I have a new contraption now with a lot of improvements and minicontraptions I wish I'd had when the finch eggs were cooking.

As for my brooder, I've got a jumbo plastic tub with hay, heat lamp, and thermostat ready. I have a nebulizer, but I doubt I will need it; the room has around 50-60 percent humidity, but in case it drops low, I have a humidifier.

I had a pet quail as a child, and was really fond of it. My brother had brought it home from school unexpectedly after the science teacher hatched some for the classroom. It was easy to take care of. We kept it in a 15 gallon fish tank, and I took it out in the yard during the day to forage and party. They also don't have super long lifespans, so it's not a 20 year commitment. They are quieter than chickens, the cocks have a delightful little call and their little eggs are a nice bonus!

As for the multiplication... They can't hatch the eggs if you nom them first. Heta and I plan to keep a couple hens and maybe a cock if he behaves himself.

I guess the quickest way to explain my decision would be that I fell in love with my birds and now I have the bird hoarder disease

Mister Gribs,

I can relate to wanting more birdies (as can most people on this forum, lol).

Sorry, I didn't quite catch it... what do you have to do, if you don't want them to hatch?

Are you planning on keeping them for the eggs? To go with the mealworms? A mealworm omelette?

Nom= eat!

Quail egg and mealwom omelette? Don't mind if I do. Keeping quail for pets and eggs. I might eat the quails themselves, but probably not as I am a huge softy and cleaning birds is the worst.

Cock Quail are quite noisy... making their barking like crow into the early morning.

If they all hatch, I would seriously suggest once they get to the stage when they are old enough to go into aviaries, you don't put them into an aviary with other birds that you are breeding.

We lost about 15 birds (adults and fledglings) killed by the 4 quail we had.

The other thing that you would have to worry about is the fact that if one of the quail gets hurt and bleeds, the others will attack and kill it.

They are pretty birds... but a nightmare around other birds!

And the males are really noisy if you didn't get that already

Dramoth wrote: Cock Quail are quite noisy... making their barking like crow into the early morning.

If they all hatch, I would seriously suggest once they get to the stage when they are old enough to go into aviaries, you don't put them into an aviary with other birds that you are breeding.

We lost about 15 birds (adults and fledglings) killed by the 4 quail we had.

The other thing that you would have to worry about is the fact that if one of the quail gets hurt and bleeds, the others will attack and kill it.

They are pretty birds... but a nightmare around other birds!

And the males are really noisy if you didn't get that already

I recently obtained a rabbit hutch, and the quail will be there all to themselves. I was aware that they can be aggressive towards each other, but killing other birds is a new one for me. I'll be sure to keep them away from my finches! I wonder if that's why nobody keeps them within miles here??

I'm prepared to face the consequences and rehome (or eat) quail that I can't properly sustain.

MisterGribs

Let's stick with the rehoming plan, shall we.....

Quail is supposed to be quite tasty!

sheather

Elana and I were discussing the evils of eating quail when I was railing about how the little tossers were killing my Zebs...

They are reputed to be quite tasty... and in a lot of areas, they are actually raised for the table.

lovezebs wrote: MisterGribs

Let's stick with the rehoming plan, shall we.....

rehoming in the belly

Dramoth

lovezebs

What can I say... I am still recovering from the nightmare of the Japanese Quail and all our poor dead Zebs.

Dramoth,

Oh sweetie, those silly Quails are gone, and there will be many, many, many more Zebras very soon