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More information on housing your button quail: (not my writing)
Many people keep button quails in the bottom of their aviary, for variety as well as to help clean up spilled seed. This is fine, as long as the other birds' droppings are cleaned out often and the quails are not overcrowded. Because their feet are not made for perching, but rather for walking, their floor must not be wire, instead use cedar or pine shavings. Newspaper is not a good idea, as the droppings will just lay on the surface and your quails will be left walking around in you know what! Traditional bird cages are an option, as long as the floor space is sufficient (minimum of four square feet for one or two) and the inner top of the cage is padded to protect against the "Boink Factor" (see below). This can be done quite easily by wiring an inexpensive piece of foam, 1" or thicker, to the inner top of the cage.
Food and water must be accessible to the quail on the floor of their home. Make sure the food dish is not something their little toes will get caught in! The best thing I have found for a waterer is a hanging dispenser that only allows a bit of water to come out at a time, with a larger amount in the reservoir. This keeps the water fresh and clean, whereas a bowl of water would quickly become dirty as the quail would be walking through it all the time and tracking stuff into it.
Left: A couple of Button Quail homes with "Boink-Proof-Roofs". The one in the back is made from an old coffee table, turned upside down, with fiberglass window screening staple-gunned inside the legs of the table.
If you want to keep button quails simply because they are so cool, and not for an aviary, keep in mind that they are not like other birds in that they are ground dwellers and cannot perch. This means that floor space is key but vertical space is not (except for the "boink" factor, which I will talk about later). If they are to be housed by themselves or in pairs, a large glass fishtank, 4' long by 1' wide, is ideal. Usually these are 55 gal. capacity, but you can have your pet store order one that is not as deep (and less expensive!) that is known as a "30 gal. long".
Button quails can be very shy, and are easily startled. They are much happier if they have places to hide, so you should add some "extra options" to their cage or aquarium. Baby Spaz has three such hiding places: a bundle of millet sprays tied by the stems and suspended from the side of the tank, an upside-down rectangular box with two doors cut in it (shoebox size), and a cardboard cylinder about 3" diameter by 6" long, with (get this) a silk shoulder pad cut out of a blouse in it to sleep on. (Okay, so he's spoiled!). Real plants are wonderful, but they must be of a sort that are not toxic to birds. Plastic or silk plants also make nice hiding places, and are much easier to maintain.
THE BOINK FACTOR
This is very important, so read carefully! When startled, a button quail's first instinct is to fly straight up to get the heck out of there. They're not going to remember if their roof is something hard until it's too late. Boinking into something unyielding can cause serious injury, permanent disability, health problems later in life, and yes, even death. The answer? BOINK-PROOF THE ROOF! It's easy to do, and will save your quail (and you) a lot of headaches later on.
30 июл 2017
