Thinking of hand rearing the quails, advice?

[kquail]

As you may know from an earlier post, I am trying to get quails. ;D
I saw a website where a woman had quails, Button quails, and she kept them like mice (indoors in cages, hand fed, hand reared, played with and handled). While I wouldn't keep them in cages, and only partly indoors, I was wondering if they could be more like pets than floor cleaners in avaries. I don't have an avairy, and so I would just keep them in the chook coop and partly indoors, is this cruel? And I was wondering if to incubate quail eggs and hatch them and raise them, would you have to be there most of the day? Im at school for around 7 hours a day (5 days a week), would that not leave enough time for my baby quails? Do they need a lot of supervision? Thanks,
Hatti.

[zooyouthben]

They feed by themselves from day one, hardest thing is getting them to recognise food

[robert]

When they are put in the Chicken Coop,please make sure no birds can fly in and eat them.Also it would help if they could forage around ,for food in the chicken Coop.Hope of help kquail.
from Robert and Precious

[lyrebird]

King Quails are easy to handrear (apparantly). I tried to hand rear my (now 2 month old) king quails. But the mother and father went crazy when they realised there chicks had gone, so I put the baby Quails back with there parents.

[lilfaery]

Hi there,
I would not personally try to hand rear any birds at this stage while you are at school, unless there is someone else who can take over when you are not home.

Even the little independent quails still need supervision and training, and the love of their parents to keep them safe and happy. I have three baby king quails at the moment of five weeks old, and they are often by their father or mother's side.

You see, the parents do feed them a little at first and then they show the chicks how to forage for food, how to recognise food, how to catch it live on the hoof eg earwigs, roaches, bugs etc, and how to find the water they drink. They also teach the babies how to bathe in sand, and literally, how to be quails.

If you take the eggs or bubs away from the parents, you then must assume all the functions that the parent birds do while raising their chicks (that goes for ANY hand reared bird). That means love and attention, socialising, grooming, feeding, bathing, exploring, and keeping warm/cool. But I suggest you don't sit on them. ;D

If you decide to give it a go, let us know how you are doing.
Cheers, Shauna

[vankarhi]

not to sit on them Shauna was extremely good advise lol ;D

Yes that is how it was for me when we had to raise 2 x day old chickens.......I had to show them with my finger how to scratch around and to eat the food when I gave it to them. I kept them inside at night in a box with a hot water bottle for a while until they could keep themselves warm.....when they were fully feathered and they would run near me with their little wings flapping when they were outside lol funny little things.