• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Button quail as feeders?

F

Flagg

New member
I recently received some fertilized button quail eggs free with my incubator, and hatched them out.

They are now 8 weeks old and laying their own eggs. Button quail are the smallest quail, adults are maybe 4" in length. I haven't weighed one yet but they're pretty small and light. I'm wondering if my adult corns or BPs could swallow an adult, as I have a few extra males to get rid of =)

Now that they are producing eggs I might try incubating them to use as feeders. Newly hatched they are quite small, perhaps fuzzy size. It's probably not worth the 18 days to incubate them, but I think I'll give it a shot with this first batch of eggs just to see if they are fertile.

Has anyone tried feeding button quail, adults or chicks?

For size reference, that egg is about the size of a nickel
9353635a.jpg
 
I have not tried quail but I have fed chickens to Jungle Carpet Pythons. They would go off their feed every once in a while and chickens always brought them back. It made their poop stink. Big time.

18 days to incubate is better than 21 days to incubate a mouse.
 
Button Quail can be used as feeders. All fowl will make the poo stinky. I've fed my monitors everything under the sun including baby birds (monitors will eat anything and not get "hooked"). It is like anything else "different"...You run the risk of getting a snake hooked on it and then you end up with a very expensive feeder bill.
 
I took a closer look and my adult BP is much thicker around than an adult button quail, so it looks like I have an outlet for my extra adult males :grin01:.

I'll check with the local feed store first and see if they will give me store credit for them or something. If not, my female ball python gets a treat.

I've collected 7 eggs in the past 3 days, I'll collect another day or 2 and put them in the incubator. I wish it was this easy to get corn snake eggs.
 
U R Evil!!!1!!

I'm joking, of course. Still, I have a dislike of rodents that doesn't extend to birds. It's completely illogical, but I have BCIs that I hope will never get big enough for bunnies. ;)
 
Well, it seems that they lay an egg a day. If I keep the quail I will be getting a LOT of eggs. It's either throw them out, eat them, cook and feed the eggs to the adult quail, or incubate them and then feed them off.

1 chicken egg = about 10 button quail eggs, so consumption by a human is not really feasible. Hatching them out is more fun.

I plan to keep 1.2 once I am sure of their genders. That's still 14 eggs a week. I'm checking at the local feed store tomorrow to see if they will give me enough store credit to make it worthwhile, so they may avoid the ball python's belly after all.
 
If anyone is interested, the ball pythons showed no interest whatsoever.

My adult Okeetee male corn snake, the only one I considered large enough to feed an adult button quail, attacked it instantly. I haven't seen him strike food that fast in a while, though it did take him some time to get it down.
 
My female okeetee has eaten quail eggs for me.....no problems with shells or anything....if you don't feel like incubating......
 
Ah yes button quail....one of the stupidest animals on the face of the planet lol. When I had all the lovebirds I went to a bird show and got a pair of button quail. One day I walked into the room flicked on the light and the female lept straight up and BAM snapped her neck off the top of her enclosure....sad lol.

But not that I have many snakes but I was thinking that they would make good feeders(the babies) for smaller corns if the owner wanted to get a variety in their diet and I was wondering if other people have used them due to their small size.

But like Roy I have no problem feeding mice for some reason but I draw the line at baby quaill:shrugs:
 
Yes that's a common problem, the "boink factor". Their enclosure has very loose fitting fiberglass screening for a top so they don't smash their heads.

As for feeding them, I'd prefer feeding these things off before I fed off any nice tame, docile rats. Rats don't try to peck each other's eyes out.
 
I always wondered if a corn snake would accept a button quail egg. they are pretty small and I am sure wild corns would eat bird eggs in the wild....just curious.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top