we are going camping soon and there is always loads of families of quail with babies while we are there. anyway i was wondering if i am allowed to catch some and take them home to keep as pets. if its not i will just buy some when i find them on tm or something. cheers matt

I have not kept californian quail but have kept and bred hundreds of chinese quail. They are very flighty birds and will fly straight up into the roof of the aviary often with fatal results. They are also very territorial so it is hard to mix birds from different groups and sorting out the pecking order can get pretty rough. I think wild caught birds would be very flighty and difficult to keep in an aviary. They are nice looking birds but you might be best to buy aviary reared ones or try to find wild eggs and hatch them. The babies are easy to raise as they feed themselves as soon as they hatch.

ok thanks was thinking of catching babies but wasnt sure wether the parent birds would reject the rest or kill the babies or something like that.

I am assuming they are similar to Chinese quail in their behaviour. I had 9 aviaries full of them at one stage and was hatching hundreds at a time.

The complications are:

They are very territorial so if you add other birds to their group they will probably kill them.

There is a distinct heirachy and only certain males get to breed and are dominant.

There are way more males than females and in nature they act as guards and have to work their way into a breeding position.

To mix two groups together I used to move them all to a new aviary so they were not fighting to defend territory (only heirachy).

Nice looking birds I wish you luck. You can feed them on the scrap seed from a seed cleaning factory provided there is no clover seed in there.

if your going camping in the nelson region,you may note a serious drop in the number of quail families about after the recent deluge?They can fly at a few days old so you will only be able to catch very young ones which would require a heat source to keep warm and alive for a few days if you ae out camping?These are easy to obtain nowadays by captive breeders and you may do more for the local birds if you leave them with their parents.Even so they are still not suited to keep in aviaries,unless maybe really well planted huge ones?They never settle and as mentioned really flighty and also feisty with other birds,we had one once the kids rescued from a cat that was reared and would put a full sized reeves pheasant into a corner and give it a good hiding!

Would have to agree. They look cute but they don't behave cute.

+1 to what has been said

Have you though about keeping Bobwhite Quail? They're a wee bit smaller than the Californian Quail and have pretty cool patterns and colours and they're very placid and easy to look after. They are best kept in pairs though because the males attack each other.

yea i have been looking at bobwhites but not sure they neighbors would be too happy with the calling lol

calis are not mute either?

no but they not as noisy r they? :dunno:

nor are the bobwhites,just depends on your neighbours I suppose?

Love thy neighbour.

They are the ones that will ring the noise control officer.

Not that they could do much about it if they are kept properly.

They should be greatful you don't have a bored sulphur crested.

yea i suppose lol, i have also got an aviary i built a while back that i was going to put some chinese painted quail and some zebra finches into. i know i can only have 1 pair of quails but how many finch pairs can i have together?

You can have one or three or more pairs of Chinese Painted Quail together. They get on well together. The only problem you'll have is if you have too many males to each female, or two pairs because the males will fight but if you have more pairs they don't really do anything to each other because there are too many males to focus on so they leave each other alone.

With finchs you can have as many pairs as you like, they are fine together and don't fight at all. I used to have some and they would all cram into this little nesting basket at night and sleep together. They were so cute! One night during autumn we had a random cold snap at and they all died because they hadn't acclimatised to cold weather yet and the days were still quite hot.

In my experience chinese quail will fight if you have more than one male. I used to run dozens together and just put it down to collateral damage. In nature there are way more males than females but there are places to hide and to escape to--not so in an aviary. The left out males are sentries in the wild.

ok sweet as what do you recomend feeding the quails

I used to feed them the mixed weed seed from a seed cleaning factory---without too much clover as it is too hard for them to digest.

These are a game bird that need a licence to hunt, not sure if you can just go out and catch them

wat bout greens? is poultry crumble ok for them?

Pass

ive heard they can have dandelions, chickweed, kale, endives etc and a bit of live food occasionally but apparently no lettuce? :dunno:

They love greens and insects, easpecially chickweed, moths and worms. I was told by a breeder not to feed the babies poultry crumble for the first 30 days because it is very high in protein and it burns their crops. He said to feed them porridge oats, but to put them in the blender and the sieve them afterwards so it's a fine powder. And you don't add water to it either. I've been doing this as soon as I first bought my quail and I've had no problems and raised quite a few little fluffy bumblebees

I have raised hundreds of bobwhites and calis from hatching exclusively on meatbird crumbles.Greens etc as they got bigger and more active.As far as the crumble being too high in protein and burning the crop I would say this is dubious?they need as much protein as they can get and even the meatbird crumbles are borderline.Most of the pheasant and game bird rearers get their own made up to the higher protein levels they want.Also raised the king quail on sieved crumbles as well with good results ,mainly because it had anti cocidiosus medication in it.

we are going camping soon and there is always loads of families of quail with babies while we are there. anyway i was wondering if i am allowed to catch some and take them home to keep as pets. if its not i will just buy some when i find them on tm or something. cheers matt

No, you cannot catch them and take them home as pets. They are listed on the Gamebird Schedue and as such, have legal protection. To do so could result in a hefty fine and confiscation of property.