The first chick, Happy, had some kind of head tremors. I went online to see what I should do, and about the only treatable thing it could have been was a vitamin deficiency. None of the other chicks were acting this way, and the vitamins didn't help, so Happy sadly died at 1 week old.
The other two chicks are great. We decided to imprint on them, and it's a lot of hard work to be a daddy quail, having to sleep with them on the bed and get up with them at 5 am, and hearing a lot of constant crying if you divide your attention, but it's SO worth it if you have a disability or work from home and can dispense that amount of devotion.
I have never seen a tamer bird, and they're super affectionate and lovable. I can't see this being a possibility for a covey of like 50 quail, but if you are doing a small hatch for pets, definitely give it a go. They're so rewarding.
I have two little hens, Diglett (mine) who seems to be a very small white, and Hulahulabarb (Heta's) who is a gorgeous lavender.
Hulahulabarb is very robust, and it's hard to stop her from robbing my plate whenever I'm eating. Any food will disappear the moment you put it in front of her. Diglett seems to not be eating enough. Her keel bone sticks out pretty fiercely when you feel it and I've decided to shadow her today and pump her full of egg soup at every opportunity. She fights me as hard as she possibly can, although I know she's hungry! She cries all the time, but simply won't eat her feed, even if it's ground down to flour. So here I am, one drop at a time...
Anyways, when the chicks were first born they were too small to band, and Heta couldn't tell them apart so we grabbed the colorful, fruit-shaped calcimin supplements we keep for our finches to eat and..
And this is them now. Sad that Happy isn't in the picture, she was my fave.
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