Quail chicks

Thank you hopefully I will get the hang of incubation and have more success next time. They are so sweet :)
 
How can I get the chicks used to the dark I put a towel over the cage should this do?
 
Where is their cage? If you use a dull emitter heat lamp and they are in a room or shed with no lighting overnight, they will be in the dark. If you cover the cage, they might overheat and be short of ventilation. If they are kept indoors they should be pretty well off heat by now I expect, so long as temperatures don’t get below 10C overnight.
 
I have just stopped heatlamp. They are in the living room until the end of the winter then they will go outside. The problem I have is my 2 daughters have autism and one sleeps in the living room so there's a light on all night not sure how to make it dark enough for them. ?
 
Well, they’ll be OK I expect, don’t worry about it. You might try just using a sheet of black paper as a cover, which would let in sufficient air if they are no longer under a heat lamp? I expect the light your daughter needs is fairly low powered anyway?
 
Thanks for that. Yeah the light is low powered they seem happy enough :)
 
My brown quail keeps making a call it stands with it's chest out and makes a weird noise what could this call be any ideas? Thanks :)
 
Great I hope the other is a girl because they are like little soul mates it's so cute ? he can be loud with it. :)
 
You’ll definitely need to buy or hatch some more ASAP though, because if you only have one hen to one male she will be repeatedly raped - coturnix have absolutely no sexual finesse I’m afraid, once things really get going in a few weeks. And sadly, if you have got two males, one of them will have to go, because when Spring comes they will fight.
 
I will get more eggs so that we can make sure he has a few females. If the other is a male too I will separate them. Is it instinct that they crow regardless of the other being female or not? He did hold onto the back of the white ones neck for a second. ?
 
Just because the other one isn’t crowing doesn’t mean it’s female as they might not mature at the same rate. And coturnix males will rape anything in sight, of either sex. Crowing is what the males do, just as with cockerels.
Unfortunately it can injure the bird being mated because the male clings on with his beak when mounting the other one. The female then tries to shake him off (the males just get in with it they don’t woo the females beforehand and get consent) he hangs on strongly, then falls off to one side, still attached by his beak to the feathers and skin of the hen, and in the process she can get chunks of hair and skin pulled out on her shoulders and head before he detaches. With my first lot I kept coming down to find that the cage was covered in blood and one of the girls was injured. One had to be put down as her eye had been pulled out.

In the end I had hatched 6 females and 13 or 14 males from two incubations. This imbalance of the sexes is common with quails, judging by what I’ve read and my own experience. I separated the males as soon as I knew their sex for sure, but they seemed to get their teenage hormones overnight so it was difficult to separate them before they had got to the girls. So I culled all the males, and the six females lived happy, peaceful and productive lives for several years together.
My advice would be to have a spare hospital cage set up in case this happens, and also get some antiseptic spray suitable for birds in stock, which you could apply on a cotton bud to avoid spraying it the bird’s eyes. I used a second hand hamster cage price £2.50 from the recycling centre shop. Just in case there is trouble ahead ....
From what I’ve read on here from other keepers, this applies more to coturnix quails than to Chinese Painted, which are smaller and apparently live happily in small domestic families of one male and up to 3-4 females. They also go broody and sometimes hatch chicks naturally, with the male taking a protective interest. So maybe they are better if people want quails as pets, although if course the eggs are tiny and not so useful in that way.
 
Ok thanks I will keep an eye on them we are going to get more eggs so that we can try and get more female ??they do sleep together a lot and it's funny when they sprall their legs out I will try and get another pic uploaded so that you can see them now they have got so big we bring them out every day to spread their wing. We are keen bird watchers and know that birds need excersice. The Male one doesn't like to be held very much but the white one loves sitting in my hands I love being hands on with my animals it's good for animals to trust their owners and vice versa ?
 
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