Button quail as veiled food source

Any experiences here on feeding your veiled a just hatched button quail?

Not ONE person has tried feeding a recently hatched button quail to their cham here? Ever HEARD of it? Please advise, as I will be doing so in about 11 days from now unless someone says, don't do it.

make sure to shoot video!!!

Button quail?

http://www.vesera.com/quail/
http://www2.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/fowl/bquail.htm
http://www.cyberquail.com/

Never heard of them ... But there is no way my lady would let me feed of something so cute! I already have enough of a hard time making sure we don't end up with pet feeder rats on the days I feed my snakes.

i wouldent be able to watch that.
i also dont know how good they are right out of the egg.
what is the nutrition vale of something just hatched?

Definatly shoot a video. Like nightcrawler asked what is the nutritional value of something just hatched. I am sure this is just out of curiosity though?

From what our vet has told us the nutrition value of the very young and freshly hatched is better than that of older prey.

Someone in our area sells button quail on craigslist. It never occured to me that they were selling to reptile owners. Yikes!

I won't be able to watch, much less shoot a video of the poor button quail being eaten. My main concern, however, is for my chameleon. If for any reason, I shouldn't feed this quail to my guy, I want to know. Otherwise, I'm thinking it's a good nutritional idea.

Oh my God... Noooo They can eat worms and bugs and stuff... None of this baby bird nonsense! For that u get a snake or something... Geez

Should be fine to feed, but not worth it. Insects are much more nutritious per-pound and per-dollar.

The only reason to feed vertebrates is to see them eat vertebrates. Or to control a nasty hummingbird or anole infestation...

I have fed them. In fact, I kept button quail up until very recently just for that purpose. I fed adult females a button quail hatchling every 2 weeks and adult males got one once a month. The little birds are quite active, and eat soon after hatching. They are very easy to gutload, and at hatching are about the size of a fluffy dime. They are very cute, endearing little critters, which makes feeding them a mind over matter sort of thing.

I kept 5 adult females and 2 adult male buttons, and incubated the eggs they produced. The eggs only take about 16-17 days to hatch, and you can wait to incubate for about 10 days without too much damage. That way, you can plan on your hatch date. I used a basic styrofoam incubator with a rotating tray that had button quail egg cups installed. If you want to go the cheap route and have an incubator, you can buy hatching eggs from www.eggbid.com.

My chameleons loved them. I just turned one loose on the cage floor, and the chameleons would take care of the rest. I gave away the adult button quail a little over a week ago because I moved to another city, and wanted to reduce baggage..

Eric Adrignola said:

Should be fine to feed, but not worth it. Insects are much more nutritious per-pound and per-dollar.

The only reason to feed vertebrates is to see them eat vertebrates. Or to control a nasty hummingbird or anole infestation...

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I don't agree with you on that, Eric. There is quite a bit of research that suggests that chameleons eat vertebrates in the wild, especially egg producing females. In "Thoughts for Food", the author kept finches to feed to her collection. Birds provide an amazing amount of fat, calories and vitamins. Plus, button quail hatchlings can be gutloaded so easily with anything that you are trying to bump up in your chameleon. A fluffy little vitamin pill, in my opinion.

Omg this thread is disturbing Poor birds.

xoiceox said:

Omg this thread is disturbing Poor birds.

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Disturb you a little more.. my leopard geckos ate them pretty happily too.

Wtf... Geckos eat birds?! Ur on crack lol

xoiceox said:

Oh my God... Noooo They can eat worms and bugs and stuff... None of this baby bird nonsense! For that u get a snake or something... Geez

Click to expand...

Worms alone are not enough for your cham. Nutritionally speaking. Crickets are better than worms. I always feed them crickets first. But as the day goes on and I see them getting bored, that's when I bring in the wiggly worms to keep them eating and healthy.

You might want to just keep a few.. like, a trio maybe, or 2 pairs. The females lay an egg every 2 to 3 days, and that adds up fast.

I fed depending on what I planned to do with the buttons. I could not feed off all I hatched. If I was raising for the local pet stores, I fed an unmedicated bird crumble made for game birds that I sent through my grain mill so it was small enough for the hatchlings to handle. You can buy it at your local feed store.

For feeding, I gutloaded with a mixture of organic grains, powdered milk, powdered tomato, powdered egg, blue green algae, and a small amount of some powdered herbs I like to gutload with for nutrition or medicinal value. The tiny birds really don't do too well with fresh veggies. I suppose if you put the veggies through a fine grator they would be able to handle them. Don't forget to put down a very flat water dish... like a lid. If the hatchlings get wet, as in fall in the water dish, they will more than likely die from the chill. I used high sided tupperware containers to house them, and used 2 clamp lamps with low watt light bulbs to keep the whole container fairly warm.

My chameleons liked them. I only had one chameleon refuse them, which is pretty good. Most of them moved pretty quick to the bottom of the cage to take the chicks.

One other thing.. a lot of times, they won't eat until the second and sometimes the third day of life. They can live on their yolk sacks for a bit, just like reptiles. I always waited until they ate before feeding them off because I wanted them to be gutloaded.