My button quail babies hatched today!

[Maddy McCall]

They are ADORABLE. Each can sit on a quarter and have plenty of room left. Tiny little critters, they are.



Edited to add photo.

[Padraig18]

1. Any pics?

:)

[Maddy McCall]

3. I took some...will upload them in a sec.

Thanks for asking. :-)

[Padraig18]

4. Cool!

I can hardly wait!

:D

[Maddy McCall]

9. Photo just added. See original post.

Thanks for asking. :-)

[ET Awful]

2. So do you have to chop up worms into tiny little pieces for them

or do you have a mama bird to do that? :) :) :)

You must get us pictures!

[Maddy McCall]

5. LOL! No, they eat quail food.

I'll put photos up in just a sec. :-)

[Lisa]

6. happy birthday to the chicks!

And a cartoon for them (since it applies to chickens, just subtract a few days!)

http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=9404

[Maddy McCall]

34. Hahaha! Love the cartoon!

Forgive me for looking over your post on the first time I perused the thread.

Thanks for the happy birthday wishes. I have to say this about button quail...they are ten times as active as any other babies we have raised. They run around the cage at lightning speed. Fast little suckers!

:-)

[CottonBear]

7. Are they pets or

do you eat them or stock a hunting area with them?

[Maddy McCall]

10. Pets.

When they start laying, we will eat some of the eggs and incubate others. Also, I might try my hand at selling eggs on ebay.

[CottonBear]

17. They are tiny and so cute!

How big are the eggs as compared to chicken eggs? Why do you raise these particular birds?

[Maddy McCall]

18. The eggs are about as big as your thumbnail.

It would take about twenty button quail eggs to equal a chicken egg. People like to pickle the eggs. I haven't tried it, but I thought some tiny little deviled eggs might be fun to do, when they start laying.

We're just raising them for pets. When they get older, in the spring, they will go outside in their own cage.

[Kat45]

8. Awwwwwww! Button quail are so cute!

But I've never seen button quail babies.

[Maddy McCall]

12. Look at the OP...just added a photo.

:-) They are cuties.

[Kat45]

16. Awwwwwwwww! They ARE little cuties!

So adorable.

[jswordy]

11. OH THAT IS SOOOO KEWL!

Goody for you! What a nice way to start the weekend! Good luck brooding them.

[Maddy McCall]

13. Thanks...haven't lost any yet. and had a great hatch yield.

Still have about eight eggs to hatch...they are already pipping. I have some larger quail eggs in the same incubator that just started hatching, too.

Yes, it's fun to have new babies around! :-)

[jswordy]

15. Especially since they have been so decimated...

...in the wild. we've lost 80 percent of our wild quail nationwide in just 20 years. Sigh. Have you ever tried habituating them and setting them free? Everything I ever read about it says only about 3 percent of captive bred quail will survive the transition.

???

[Maddy McCall]

20. The thing about the coturnix quail that I raise...

is that they won't go broody. The only way to replicate them is to put their eggs in an incubator. I have twenty saved up that will go in the inky tonight. :-)

Button quail are pretty much domesticated. They'll live out their lives in their own big spacious cage, being fed by my son and me. :-)

[Padraig18]

14. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Those are ADORABLE!

:loveya:

[Dookus]

19. congrats!

They'll fry up real good. :P

[Maddy McCall]

23. You jest, I know...

but the eggs they lay will become deviled eggs, If I can figure out how to do it. :-)

[Dookus]

24. oh nice

eating little quail abortions. Tsk tsk....

[Maddy McCall]

26. LOL!

Deviled quail eggs will send me to hell. :-)

[Maddy McCall]

21. ANOTHER PHOTO

I took this photo just after they hatched.

[ET Awful]

29. Awwwww, a blonde bird :) n/t

[Maddy McCall]

35. And Blondee is the ruler of the roost. :-)

[roguevalley]

22. awww. you really like your birds, don't you. :-D

[Maddy McCall]

25. I love raising them.

Right now, here is how many birds I have:

25 Guineas
13 Coturnix Quails from the last hatch
5 Gamefowl
3 Silver Seabright banties
7 Indian Runner Ducks

Then, from this hatch, so far:
12 Button Quails (more to come later today)
8 Coturnix Quails (ditto above)

And then our other pets:

2 lizards
3 frogs
1 cat
2 dogs
2 bunnies

My god, I just realized, we have a petting zoo!

(I will be liquidating some of the birds at the next bird trade day here. :-) )

[Dookus]

27. Liquidating?!

eep! po' little birdies....

[Maddy McCall]

28. Well, what usually happens is that I go with an empty cage...

and take in MORE birds. That's how I ended up with the gamefowl and the Seabrights.

We have three incubators standing on ready when these guys start laying...it will be their offspring that will be liquidated. :-)

[BlackVelvetElvis]

30. Congrats on the new babies!

What are they like as pets?

[Maddy McCall]

31. These are the first button quail I've incubated.

But the coturnix are very docile and sweet. And they are excellent layers.

They let you hold them--and this is partially because the imprint on you when they are born. You become their mommy. Same with the ducks, who imprinted on my son--they follow him around--ducks in a row. It's so funny.

[Lisa]

32. yeah, the duck thing is pretty funny ...

I gave a batch of day-old Runners (chocolate and black) to a friend -- she reported that her toddler began to run around after them in a ducklike pose! She's wondering if the kid will ever learn a "human walk" now, since it's so cute that everybody keeps encouraging her to do it!

[Maddy McCall]

33. LOL!

How funny! I'd love to see that! Are they afraid of the kiddo?

[Lisa]

39. well, they're already used to running around in a tight group ...

As long as Charlotte keeps pace, they kind of assume that she's one of them (but a bit bigger and featherless). BTW, she's the baby in the movie "The Book of Ruth", which was filmed around here ... several people have told her mom that the kid and the ducks might win a prize on that home videos TV show, but the family figures that she's had more than enough camera time for now.

[cmd]

36. Thank you for sharing

I love this thread. I didn't know how tiny they were. Do you have pics of some of the grown ups?

[Maddy McCall]

37. No, I don't.

I bought the eggs from a guy in Louisiana who raises them. So I don't have any adults to photograph.

Here's a picture I grabbed from the internet, though.

[cmd]

38. Thank you

Enjoy your brood.