Crazy Quail

[busymumma]

Hi not sure if anyone can help. We have five week old quail (hatched from incubator) which have been doing fine on chick crumb. Yesterday I switched them onto layers mash and they are now starting to dash up and down the wire of the cage and behave erratically boinging up and down trying to escape. Is it the change in food does anyone think? They're inside our house at the mo before we put them outside in the garage. Up till now they've been relatively calm. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Tim]

Hi Busymumma,

I'm not sure if it's causing them to behave erratically but like Turkeys, they do need a high protein feed.

There is some information on Feeding Quail on the site that was written by Claire Lawrence of Smallholder Range that might be of use...

If you don't have this sort of feed, as a short term stop-gap you could give them some mashed hard boiled egg to top up their protein levels and see if this changes their behaviour.

Let us know how you get on.

Tim

[Blue]

quail are abit bonkers anyway!
some are dedicated escape artists....

have you gradually mixed the two feeds, or swapped straight to the mash?

quail are also quick to mature ... at 5 weeks, it should be possible to accurately tell the males from females, so it could also be the "joys of spring" they are displaying (how delicately put!!)

[dorinda]

I feed my quail chicks on Garvo chick starter crumb then go onto the quail feed, but do the changeover slowly (little by little add quail mixture to their crumbs) water all the time and I also hang millet branches to keep them occupied and they are full of protein. As for being bonkers - none of mine have been, but I've handled them every day from the start, so I don't have crazy birds at all - far from it - they are totally mature sexually at 6 weeks and should start lating about then too - be hard and don't leave many males with the girls, that is maybe why they are wild - trying to get away from the boys!!

[busymumma]

Thank you all for your advice.I took them straight off the mash and back on the chick crumb and will now gradually introduce adult feed. We also took a trouble maker out which helped. We are having some issues with sexing so we may well have mixed birds together at the mo which might be one of the problems. I've.noticed that a couple of them have started making a growling noise occasionally which is new. Do you know if this is a male or female trait by any chance?

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