Monday, March 21, 2011

Some QUAIL QUERIES

A follower of our blog has the following queries about quails:-

We started an outdoor aviary 2 1/2 years ago with Zebra finches and common quails. They are all happy and have bred continuously.
    I have a few questions about quails and hope you can assist me or direct me to someone who can. I have been readling on the internet but have not found answers to my questions.
The scenario is:
From the original pair of quails we now have 7. The female quail has managed to raise 3 sets of chicks in this time despite the commom belief that they are not good mothers (first one, then 2 then another 2). The most recent hatched 34 weeks ago and there were 3 but one died in the first week.
They have mostly been female chicks. One, I think may be a male. In August 2010 the one young female laid eggs and sat for weeks - and was veru broody - and eventually after over 4 weeks I took them out as they were obviously not fertile. She has not laid eggs any since, but the original female has.
I have 3 questions:

1. The female quails (the older chicks) who are now reaching maturity - should I be buying another male quail for the aviary or will the original male fertilise their eggs too?

2. One of the older females' beak is very long - unusually long - and she can feed okay, but I feel it needs to be 'trimmed' of filed. Please guide me as to the correct thing to do?

3. I give them fresh spinach every day (that I grow in my garden - they are very fussy and will not acceot spinach bunches from the shops) but they do not seem to eat any other fruit or vegetables I put down. Is this usual?
I would appreciate your response.
Kind regards
Clare

Hi Clare,
Glad to hear your quails have been breeding, though the number bred over a 2 1/2 year period does seem to be lower than it shold be. A common problem with breeding results is often related to the age of the parent birds. For best results try matching birds that are about 1 year old. and the results should greatly improve.
The incubation period for Common Quails is 16-22 days. A lot of futile time can be saved by candling the eggs at the 10 day stage. If they are clear they should be discarded, and very often you may find the whole clutch infertile.
Its not usually a good idea to have more than 1 cock in the same aviary, as they can become very aggressive towards each other when wanting to breed. So I would recommend having 1 new young cock to not more than 2 of your young matured hens per aviary.The Cock may mate with both and they may both lay in the same nest.
Rather dispose of the original pair and any surplus offspring if you dont have another aviary or two to keep them separate. Always , when swopping or obtaing other birds, try and select birds that are not blood-line related to prevent interbreeding.

Regarding an overgrown beak, this can be rectified by using a sharp pair of scissors or nail clippers, and clip the beak back just above where the bloodline begins. This should be roughly the same length as the other mandible.

If you have chickweed, I`m sure you`ll find this will be devoured by the quails, though homegrown spinnach is also very good. Like humans they are partial to different things at different time of the year!

Lastly, if you arent already giving your quails softfood (eggfood) I suggest you do as this has a lot of nutritional value especially for breeding and raising baby quails. You could mix in grated carrots, and brocolli which is very good for them.
Hope this helps
Mike.