Rehoming Project
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Rehoming Project
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The Coturnix Quail By Bill Goodwin
The Coturnix Quail (Coturnix) is known by several names. Pharaoh’s Quail and King Quail are two of the most common names. They also come in many colors: British Dark, White, English White, Normal, Tuxedo and others. They have a wide range in the wild, having been introduced to many countries on many continents including Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Coturnix Quail are a fairly peaceful addition to the aviary. It is a peaceful bird who does not’t cause any trouble or extra work, while it helps keeping down the amount of insects that might be looking for a new home. The Coturnix Quail seems to do well with most non-ground type birds; we have housed them with many types of birds including but not limited to different varieties of finch, cockatiels, parakeets and other smaller parrots. It is recommended however that you either keep a single pair or several birds of the same sex. If the ratio of males to females is too high the males will fight over females and do sometimes become aggressive and will pick. If you are not planning on breeding them, you can keep several males without any females together in an aviary without a picking problem. Nutrition is one of the most important factors in keeping the Coturnix Quail happy and healthy. Besides eating the "left over" feed of other birds they also need a good balanced diet with higher protein. This comes in many forms from mash to crumbs. (If you raise finch the mash or crumbs can be an added bonus, as many types of finch also need the extra protein during breeding season and will feed the higher protein feed to their babies as well.) When the Coturnix Quail are very young a good high protein diet is needed with some extra protein such as fishmeal or skimmed milk. Do not feed them chicken starter mash, as you will find many will starve to death. Instead feed them Game bird starter mash or Turkey starter mash for the extra protein. Coturnix Quail have a very fast early growth rate and need this high protein as they can mature as early as at 5-6 weeks. They can be prolific layers giving you as many as 250 eggs a year per hen. We recommend incubating the eggs if you plan on raising this kind of quail. The eggs hatch in 16-17 days. Care must be taken with newly hatched chicks to prevent them from drowning the first week or two in their water dishes. Either special a water dish can be purchased or you can use a pint jar lid filled with marbles. This will allow the quail to drink between the marbles yet prevent them from drowning. If you haven’t experienced a few of these fun little birds in your aviaries maybe now is the time. |
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