Quail Common Health Information

Care of domesticated adults is not difficult. They need protection from rain and wind, and shade when it is very hot. It should be noted that this breed has a bad habit of flying strait up when they are startled. They will often hit their heads on the roof of their enclosure. This can be a major problem, and can even cause death to the quail. Normally clipping their wings can solve this problem, and making the cages sort, so they can't build up their speed.

It should also be noted that the males can be very aggressive, and for this reason you should have a ratio of one male to three females.

Common Quail may occasionally be toxic to some people. The name of this toxicity is Coturnism, and it affects a seemingly random cross section of the population. It is thought that people may show a genetic predisposition for the illness.

Breeding
These quail are very prolific in captivity. The domesticated ones will not usually brood their eggs, so an incubator is required. The hens start laying around 6 weeks of age.

The Common Quail usually breeds in the early summer and finds a mate through vocal displays. Males tend to highly outnumber females, so breeding is a very selective process. A clutch of between nine and 15 eggs will generally be deposited in a scrape the female makes in the ground and then lined with vegetation. These eggs usually incubate for between 16 and 21 days.

The chicks are considered delicate, because they are so small. They have to have very warm temperatures (98 Fahrenheit) at first, and they often die of drowning - using sallow pop-bottle fonts can prevent this.