who keeps button quail?

[iluvaussiebirds]

I'm really keen on making contacts with people interested in australian native quails, i'm particularly interested in the turnix species, for exchange of information, tips, advice, chats & genes. I keep black breasted, littles, &painteds at present, and have kept redchested, stubble & brown (and king of course) in the past. who else has quail & what have you learnt or want to know?

[Nrg800]

I plan on keeping three Painted Button Quail in my aviary that should be finished by the end of the school holidays! I have ogranised to get the three from a breeder in Brisbane, but I'll be happy to swap some blood lines with you when I've breed a few of them! I'd love some tips on the breeding and housing of Button-quail! If you could PM anything to me, I would greatly appreatiate it!

Thank you!
~Nathan

[Jayburd]

I am going to be keeping littles very soon
Feel free to give me a PM and I'll send you my phone number if you like so we can have a bit of a chat
I love buttonies, I've bred lareg amounts of kings and now it's time for something new.

[iluvaussiebirds]

Painteds are great fun. Make sure you get 1 hen & 2 males, although I've found they breed better with just one pair per aviary. More than 1 hen will result in bloodshed, the hens are very viscious. Very free breeders so long as they have - dirt or sand to scratch & bathe in, at least 50% of their diet must be live food, and privacy, lots of grass tufts or brushy stuff to hide behind & under. Tips for breeding are - ALWAYS remove the hen once the male is fully committed to the nest, usually after a week of sittiing, otherwise the hen will often call him off the nest to start a new one, and she will kill the chicks when they hatch, and ALWAYS feed lots & lots of small insects 3 times a day when the babies hatch for at least 3 weeks as they only eat live food, no seeds, for this time, and mealworms, even minis & fly larvae are just too big for them.

[Jayburd]

I was surprised by the size of them! they are more like brown quail than the king-quail size I expected
I saw a number of quails including red chested, red backed, painted, little, stubble, brown and king at a collection in Kalangur, Qld. Beautiful

[Nrg800]

Yello everyone! I was just dreaming up my feeding station that could probably go under the house (Very grand, more like a Darkroom than a Feeding Facility, and I got to the Button-Quails...

What's the best way to feed them the live food. Although I haven't seen Button-Quail in the wild (got soo close though) I do know that they dig for their food in the leaf-litter. Now I have already covered my aviary in Leaf litter, but how do I put the food into it? If I just chuck it around i'm sure a large amount will be missed, and I won't be able to keep tabs on the consumption. Could I dig a 30cm Diameter food dish into the ground and put all the live food in there? Would the quail's know that that's where their food is? Or would they just stumble across it in their normal foraging routine?

I think another visit to the Tip for supplies to get Mealworms and Maggots started.

Just gotta put the Qubelok frame and wire up and furbish it now!

[iluvaussiebirds]

I put the live food in a shallow dish. They find it quick & learn in just a couple of days that'swhere it is. They start coming out as soon as you chuck the live food in, they get very quiet.