Thanks for your interesting question. The 2 are closely related and have been successfully crossed in captivity. In fact, many birds in the pet trade in some areas likely have had both species as ancestors. I’m not aware of any problems that have arisen, and you may get some very interesting chicks. Please let me know how all goes, I’d like to pass your experiences along to others.

Please let me know if you need any further information. Good luck, enjoy and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for your interest in our blog and congrats on your chicks.

Unfortunately, if the chick was hatched in an incubator it will be quite difficult to introduce it to the parents; they usually attack chicks that they did not incubate in the nest.

In normally-colored button quail, the female lacks the black and white throat-chest markings, and her breast does not have the blueish cast of the male’s breast. This is only apparent once they are mature, however. It’s more difficult to distinguish sexes among the various color phases (albino, lutino, etc) but the males are usually brighter in color.

Good luck, enjoy and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for the feedback – I should have mentioned that the egg was incubated by the parents until the female died, spent 1 week or so on the pilot light, not whole incubation period. It was a long time ago, but I don’t think the chick did well but rearing did not work out.

Good luck and please keep me posted.

No insult at all! Its nice to see cases like yours when a childhood interest blossoms into a career of the same.

I went ahead and aborted the second run due to needing the pad space for the eggeater eggs in the other thread…but temperatures probably varied too much for a good hatch(between 96-104…and this with me looking in at least 2x per day). So long as something well insulated is used it seems temps would remain stable but since the eggs need fresh air and turning that throws a bit of a variable into things. The story of the lovebird eggs is amazing!(from my reading it seems parrot eggs are even trickier). Did she end up hand raising the baby?

All the Best
~Joseph

Thanks for the as always interesting and unique post…at the risk of insulting you, I have to say you remind me a lot of myself in my younger days – actually, even now, I’m still tweaking things! My cousin once hatched a lovebird egg using the pilot light on her old gas stove, so it is possible. With some birds the turning timing/rate does matter but I imagine quail would be close to what chickens need – let me know if you need details. Humidity is impt, embryos/chicks often get stuck in the egg or to the sides of the shell in dry conditions. Keep a powder free latex glove nearby – oils from skin can clog the egg’s air pores, and watch for dead eggs – phorid flies find them right away – they lay on the shell and the larvae actually enter through the air pores! Once established, they may get into your terrariums.

Good luck and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

I’ve been going to a feed store and purchasing the beautiful turquoise eggs that these quail lay for my snakes. Anyway, they frequently go through them slowly and rather than putting these fertile eggs in the fridge and perhaps subsequently tossing them I wonder how feasible is it to incubate them without a commercial incubator? I decided to set something up on a heatpad with a little Coralife thermostat and have been trying to keep it at around 101 or so degrees(this is apparently a cheapy still air incubator). I fried a few the first time when the temp rose to 107 overnight but aside from this problem I can’t think of any other reasons eggs kept in such a manner won’t hatch provided the humidity is kept up and I turn them every time I walk past the snake cages.

Thanks!
~Joseph

Thanks for your comment; the general impression I had, without having checked into it too much, was as you say – parent raised birds not all that common. It is something to see if at all possible, nothing like it!

Good luck and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Thanks for your interest in our blog and for taking time to write in with your observations…both very good points and well-worth keeping in mind.

Good luck and please check in when you can,

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.