If you find your button quail are feather picking each other then the situation is stressing them out badly and you should consider removing more birds, increasing the enclosure size or pair breeding.The California quail ( Callipepla californica), also known as the California valley quail or Valley quail, is a small ground-dwelling bird in the New World quail family. Any bird that shows extreme aggression should be removed. If you really must put older birds or those who have not been raised together, you can try a large enclosure with LOTS of hiding places, multiple food and water stations and make sure to introduce all birds at the same time and CAREFULLY watch them.
Then decide at about 3-4 weeks of age (if you can sex them) which birds you would like to keep together in a group and remove the “extra” birds that you want to pair up or find a home for. If you are going to do colony breeding, the safest thing (remember they can be aggressive enough to kill each other) is to raise a group of genetically diverse young together. Two male/female pairs often result in aggression as one male will try to chase off the other male and keep both females. While I do believe pair breeding is best, colony breeding can be done…generally 3-4 pairs work best OR if you prefer 2 females for every male. There is something to be said for allowing birds to choose their own mates if they do not like who you choose for them 🙂 This same female started laying eggs within 2 weeks of being allowed to choose her own mate. I caught the male she liked (there were several with the same markings) and then placed her in a separate cage with him. Once I figured out the male she preferred over the others (it was mutual). She did attack them but since there was a good number of birds the aggression was diffused so that no single male was singled out.Īfter 2-3 days it was clear that she liked normal and golden pearl males but did not like males of other colors. For her, I placed her in a large enclosure with 6 young males and waited. I had one female who was VERY aggressive towards any male I put with her and this aggression continued without pause.
What to do if this fails or if there is no pause in aggresssion even with the tents (one bird hunts the other). Tips and Tricks to Pair up Aggressive Button Quail This is not always the case but I very, very rarely see such behavior when the birds are kept in pairs. The males will chase them down for the chance to mate and the females make a much different distress cry when the males attention is not wanted. Sometimes, in trios or colonies, females are sometimes forced to mate. No violence or aggression and the female does not make distress cries but a different peeping sound. The male will approach the female and if she is interested, she will squat down and allow the male to mount her. If she accepts, she is accepting her as her mate. He will often make a wind sound (rrrrrrah sound) and sometimes try to offer her a choice bit of food. I believe with the slate pair above it took the female a few hours long to be ok with the male.Īfter a little time has past, the male will generally try to court the female with wings hanging down as he does a little dance around her. Generally the birds are getting along within 24-48 hours. This gives the attacked bird a way to get away. If on the other hand, one of the bird chases and pecks the other, I immediately shake things up (not literally) and add a few boxes or cardboard pieces bent to form little tents. If they haven’t shown aggression by then, they probably are not going to. If neither bird acts aggressive, I just sit and watch them for a couple of hours. I put clean shavings in the bin, add a large handful of hay with some finch seed (distraction) and then I place netting over the top of the bin and add the two birds I want to pair up. It involves a large plastic bin that is about 34″ long and maybe 20″ wide. My method for introducing button pairs if pretty simple. While it is more common for males to attack other birds, females are quite capable of being territorial too. It is important to realize that button quail can actually be quite aggressive. Now, you might not believe this but the pair in the feature photo HATED each other to begin with.
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