# Button Quail Hatch-Along



## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

With my first hatch of button quail (Chinese Blue-Breasted Quail/King Quail/C. chinensis), I had only one chick hatch out of fifteen eggs that I set. At day ten I candled, and found four infertile eggs. On day 16 (hatch day), there was nothing. I chekced the thermostat and the dial had been moved a litle, and the temperature was several degrees lower than it should be. In the end (on day 22), my one baby hatched, with assistance. The next day I opened the other eggs carefully. All were dead. Four were fully developed, but failed to pip. Another was fully developed, and pipped into a blood vessel on the membrane, and either died of blood loss, or drowned, and one was mostly developed, but quit a few days before lockdown. The remaining eggs were only a tiny bit developed (about day four for a chicken egg, so day 2-3 for buttons), and some had been damaged in shipping, and didn't develop at all. I'll be posting pictures of the single chick soon.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I recieved 29 eggs on tuesday or wednesday, and opened one to check for fertility. It was fertile, and today is day 2 of incubation for the new eggs. I will begin turning them tomorrow, three times a day.

There is also a chicken egg on day 6 in the incubator, which should hatch the day after the buttons.


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## MattsBettas (Dec 18, 2012)

This is really neat, I'll be following. I've always found domestic birds fascinating and while I circumstances prevent me from owning any right now I will one day!


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Heres a picture of the brooder. She's the only babyin there and was so lonely for the first week.



Ten gallon aquarium
Red heat bulb
Heat lamp
Non skid shelf liner
Paper bedding 

For water: mayo lid with marbles to prevent drowning and chills
For food: mayo lid with gamebird starter
For sleepy time: dark colored sock. She shoves her face under it and falls asleep.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Spankie (I did not name her. I often call her Yolo because she gets as high as she can and then jumps.), cuddling with a sock. She loves the sock.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

And here she is standing around


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Here she is in my hand. I have a pretty small hand, too. She's very tiny still, and already nine days old. I'll try to get a picture of her newly forming feathers tomorrow, but she doesn't stop moving and it's hard to snap a photo so fast. I may use a video if she won't hold still.


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## Pandanke (Jun 16, 2014)

Adorable! I was looking into many of the little quail varieties when we still planned to move out to the country and I'd have a bigger house.

I am determined to get them, someday! They're just too adorable. I may have a bleeding heart for all things cute/pitiful, though...

Can't wait to see more of this.


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## cindygao0217 (Jul 3, 2014)

So cute


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## cindygao0217 (Jul 3, 2014)

I wish I could own them


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## DaytonBetta (Feb 4, 2014)

How cute. 

Do you just keep them as pets or for eggs/meat?


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

They're pets. Someday I hope to get chickens, and maybe get a few eggs from them (mostly I want sebrights though, and they're not great layers). I wouldn't be able to use my birds for meat. I don't like meat that much anyway, it makes me feel ill. Plus buttons are way to small for meat. They only get to about the size of a chicken chick as adults.

They do lay eggs. They actually lay an egg everyday, but the eggs are very tiny. I would probably collect for a while and then use them for cakes nor something. Sadly, eating eggs on their own make me feel sick. I'll post a pic of one of the eggs next to a coin for reference in a few minutes.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I don't have any change right now, so I had to dig around in my jewelry box for some coins. This is all I could find that I recognized.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I had to euthanize my betta Hella, today, who was a PetCo baby betta rescue. She was a pretty blue plakat girl, and she suddenly developed dropsy two days ago. I tried to help her, fresh clean water, kanaplex, but I couldn't help her. Today she started bleeding around some of her scales, and I did not want her to suffer anymore. I have no clove oil right now, except one drop. I mixed it up and she went to sleep, and I had to use blunt force to end it for her. I wanted to necropsy her, but I couldn't due to the method of euthanasia.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Sorry I'm not uploading any candling pictures, but I'm trying not to interfere too much this time. Button eggs are also quite dark and difficult to see through. I've candled a couple eggs one time so far and can barely see anything. I didn't take pics, mostly because they are so small and therefore cool more quickly than other, larger eggs, so I only had them out for about thirty seconds. From what I could tell, though, they seem to be where they should.

I'll be getting a new flashlight soon, a brighter one, so I'll try and candle and get pics with that later. 

The chicken egg is developing as well, right on schedule, and I can see movement. I'm not sure I'll be keeping the chicken chick, because quail can catch disease from chickens that will kill them. Usually the chicken doesn't even have any symptoms, and is perfectly fine. Most likely I'll be giving it away if it's a pullet. If it's a cockerel I definitely can't keep it. Plus, you can't just have ONE chicken. They're quite social and require at least one companion.

I may spam you with unrelated pics tomorrow, of my family friends animals... Lots of goats, a horse, several chickens (where I got my one chicken egg from), a rescue pigeon, a zillion guppies, a pair of VT angelfish, and a cat. They had a dog, but I believe he recently died. I've not seen him for a while. He was old though, so I suppose that's why.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I MIGHT have picked up some more eggs for my incubator while at my sister's birthday party yesterday. A family friend lives right next door to the house that party was at, and I got some eggs from their small flock. I believe they are silkie mixes, but I'm not too sure. The silkie was broody on them when I took them, but they were fresh eggs from that morning, so they'll still be viable. The silkie's daughters are the only other hens in the run, so they are all part silkie.

There were also two other broodies, sharing a next box, and they were super aggressive, but pretty small. I did managed to get the eggs out (also laid that day, and still viable), but I already had two eggs to take, and I just gave them to the owner. Those broodies were mean, though.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Lockdown was two days ago, and I'm expecting pips in the next 48 hours. I also candled on of the two chicken eggs I brought from my sisters party, so here's a pic of a day four chicken candling.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

In this picture I labeled the parts if the chick at this stage.


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## InStitches (May 26, 2014)

so cool


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I'm so excited! I can't wait for them to start hatching. Maybe I'll take some pictures of Spankie and post them, to at least distract myself. Also, I probably should track her growth, it's just so interesting. They grow up so fast!


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

To distract myself, I shall give a tour of my room... 


First I have my shelf...



Top left is my corn snake terrarium. Here's a closer look:






Next is the 2.5 MiniBow on the top right. It houses a single male mouse, who is always getting beat up. I don't have a picture of him, but here's his home:



I'll try and get a picture of him tomorrow.


The second shelf down has a critter keeper on the left. This contains my 762829949493939488492 bladder snails.




On the right of that shelf is a small sterilite with my eight roaches. 



On the floor is a large sterilite (64 qts), with six mice in it. One male and five females. All are feeders except one of them. They're not used as feeders though. They're my pets.




To the right of the shelf is my incubator:

With the light (heating element) off:



With the light on:



Here's the inside, I took the picture through the viewing window, so excuse the glass reflection:




The next wall has my desk, which has my tanks.

First is my boys, in a twenty gallon long, divided three ways:




My sorority is the other:




Under my desk is the button quail brooder, which Spankie is in.

Here's how small she was the day after she hatched:



Here she is today (same water bowl with marbles):



She's started getting reddish feathering around her vent, which indicates she's actually a he, but it's still hard to tell at this age. I thin she's three weeks about. She hatched on June 28.



I also have five indoor cats and a colony of six (soon to be eight) TNR cats. They're mostly quite friendly, but some are a bit skittish.


Anyway, I thought I'd share.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I'll try to remember to do a photo shoot for all of my individual beasties tomorrow. And to report in if I get any pips. 

•.•


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

I am guilty of picking up another tank today. It's one of those glofish tanks, but only three gallons. I think I'm going to stock it with shrimp or snails.

Does anyone know any shrimp that are good for beginners in the shrimp dep? My lfs has Japanese algae eating shrimp, Amano shrimp, and some others. They also have a vanilla lobster. I wonder if I could get one of those instead. With the glo lights it would look cool. I'll have to research it.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

We've got babies! Only five hatched out of the 28 that I set, but they are doing good. I'll post pictures soon!


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Here was the first one that hatched two days ago.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Here it is after fluffing out yesterday.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

And here it is compared to Spankie.


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## Jennalyn (Jun 23, 2014)

Oh, the cuuuuuute! Brings me back to when we used to raise chickens on the farm. I always loved getting peeps in the spring. <3


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## hrutan (Jun 25, 2014)

Cute little guys.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Cute! Can the little ones be with Spankie, or would he start bullying them?


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Spankie started pecking at them when I let them in together, but when they can run, I'll most likely be combining them. They are still a little small for that though, and Spankie can't be trusted yet. Plus, Spankie, being a singleton, knows very little on how to behave with other birds. Hopefully he'll learn soon.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

Hah, yea I thought so. Chickens are similar like that. :-D
Bad Spankie. D:


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Yeah. I've heard that about chickens.

Anyways sorry about not posting much. I've been camping for a couple days. I'll be home tomorrow though.


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## ThetaSigma (Jan 18, 2014)

Not quite button quail and not quite hatching, but yesterday (I assume), one of my female roaches had babies. The nymphs are quite small, a bit less than 3/4 of a centimeter. At this point, they've already lost the white coloring and now look like teeny tiny adults. Except their antenna are really long, and they're SO cute. 

My mother disagrees.


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