Keeping and breeding quail?

[Shameless_phantom]

I am interested in keeping and breeding quail in the bottom of my finch aviary. Can anyone give me some info on them? How to keep n breed them also what do they eat? Any help would be great!

[Buzzard-1]

What type of quail ?
If you are talking kings they breed like Zeb's no special diet though they do like live food but tend to get fat quick. Shallow water container, some cover and very small wire around bottom of cage as the young will fit through ordinary 12.5mm finch wire.

[tonytoast]

Quail are the vacuums of the aviary and will eat anything on the floor and generally pretty easy to look after....

However, assuming you are talking King Quail and that you have never had them before my advice is do lots of research...not about what they eat, where they nest etc, but about the pros and cons of keeping them...they breed well (sometimes too well), can get a little aggressive and are sometimes quite difficult to get rid of...they may startle at night and fly into the roof (busted heads/distruption to nesting birds etc) and they can hog any live food that little finches also enjoy....on the flip side, the babies are very cute, for a little while.

Just some thoughts.....

[finchbreeder]

Just put your live food up out of their reach and no problem. And get your starter birds from someone who has quiet well manered birds. Mine do not fly up even when being caught. Will take fledgling finches under their wing overnight, but not feed them of course. Only thing they do is call.
LML

[Shameless_phantom]

Thank you so much for your help! I am thinking Japanese quail or King Quail. Finchbreeder your quail sound lovely the way they look after the babies is so cute!

[SamDavis]

Assuming you mean king quail, there are a few disadvantages in my opinion. I have a pair (and a few hard to catch mature young) in a large planted aviary and I'll probably get rid of them soon. Here's my issues:
1. They'll eat every bit of food within reach - particularly livefood. So natural livefood for finches is virtually non-exsistent.
2. You'll need to provide feed/water at floor level for them, which I don't like doing. I have a feed station up high to avoid the quail and also as a mouse deterrent but still need some down low for the quail which is annoying.
3. The chicks, although cute, are not the brightest creatures. More than one pair in a large aviary can lead to disaster - the newly hatched chicks will follow any adult quail which often means they wander too far from mum. And they will drown if the water is deeper than about 5mm.
4. Surplus are a real pain to keep in holding aviaries/cages as they attack each other if more than a pair are kept in confined or unplanted quarters.
5. Can be very difficult to sell in any quantity - I often give them away.
But the young are super cute and I have seen young painteds snuggling up to them during cold weather!

[Shameless_phantom]

Well i purchased a pair of King Quail and have put them in my Zebby Aviary 900x1700mm and they were slightly wild but have calmed down now since learning my routine. I will only be keeping the pair in this aviary and when i get my big aviary 1700x3000mm i will get a pair of the silver kings. They are cute little creatures and i enjoy them so will see how we go.

They seem to fetch a pretty penny at our local Poultry and Bird Auction!

[SamDavis]

By "pretty penny" I assume you mean a dollar coin!
Yes, they are cute and I suspect most on the forum have kept them at some stage.

[Shameless_phantom]

They go for between $12 and $20 a pair.