peep peep! button quail chicks!

[pouchedrat]

well, I had 10 eggs total, three hatched, one partway hatched and died halfway out and the rest haven't hatched yet/may not hatch at all.

We used a hovabator this time around, still air, manual turning the eggs. Anyway, these little button quail chicks are CUTE!!! I've had buttons in the past, but they were two adults from a pet store and weren't tame at all. I'm hoping by raising these guys they'll be tame (and hoping for at least one female in this group, I technically hatched them so it'll be easier to get fresh eggs for my egg-eating snake rather than ordering them all the time).

Video of them at 12 hours old. I'm really just sticking my hand in there to show how tiny they are (and I have short, stubby fat tiny hands). And yeah, that's my 4 year old son at the end of the video saying "What happened? Farted!". I ........don't know why I left it in, I forgot about it, but I was laughing when he said it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ86wyAhtDU

I have tiny little mealworms I've been raising for a few months now, and they're actively hunting the little things down and eating them. Hoping to tame them down big time through mealies.

 

[dtknow]

Cute! do you know what colors they are going to be? For some reason I had the impression these things would come out brown or camo(I'd assume yellow is probably a artificial color)

These eggs came thru the mail right? I wonder how much luck I'll have with ones laid w/o shipping.

 

[pouchedrat]

I ordered tuxedo (pied) and white. Since these three are all yellow, I'm going to assume that only the all-white ones hatched. The chick that died had black on top and yellow on the bottom (looked just like a tuxedo/pied chick would). They came through ebay, yes. I know buttons don't have a very high hatch rate depending on the time of year, although summer it's usually higher, we did have some cold days there, and shipping probably affects that (plus they were sitting out for two days at room temperature before incubating, on top of being in the mail for 2 other days). 3 out of 10 is a reasonable number all things considered, plus the fact I'm a newbie to hatching ANYTHING. Whatever you order on ebay, they always throw in extras (I ordered 6, got 10).

This was actually my second try with quail eggs. The hovabator was far better than the cheap little plastic incubator I tried last time. With that, only three developed at all, and one died just before hatching. I think I'll keep this incubator around for future uses, It's simple but works well.

/edit- since they're probably the all-white, it's going to be a pain figuring out male from female, since there won't be any bibs on the males

 

[Teal]

Awww! Too cute

I love buttons.. I had a flock when I was younger, but don't anymore

 

[whitewolf]

awhhh how cute. I was looking at getting back into raising quail again a few weeks ago but I don't really want to build the enclosures. I was looking at button, pheasant, or maybe bob white again. They are cute though.

 

[Galapoheros]

Quail are awesome! I had these a couple of weeks ago, I don't have them anymore though.

Haha, just kiddin, they were given to me, couldn't let them go to waste. I think quail and chickens are cool, I'd like to have chickens running around some day.

 

[H. laoticus]

haha, wow
yeah, quail meat is pretty good...

anyways, very nice little chicks

 

[dtknow]

any updates on these cute little things?

 

[pouchedrat]

One unexpectedly passed away while they were still tiny, but the other two are going strong and getting HUGE (for buttons)! One's pure white, while the other is mostly white with a "dirty" looking colored head and back.

I'll get updated pictures later today (camera is without batteries right now). I honestly cannot tell if I have males or females for either, since there's no bibs to go by, and I'm not exactly experienced in looking at their undersides to sex them, lol. I think they squeeze baby chicks or something to sex them. I think I'll just wait until a pecking order happens, or one pops out an egg.

Oh yeah, we named them Dan "Quail" and Dick Cheney, for obvious reasons, LOL!