# Other Pets > Birds >  Squee! Button quail hatchling!

## spygirl

Well, I acquired a young button quail pair while I was living in Arizona. I'm breeding them as a food source for falconry. That and I just like them.  

So we moved back to Texas and the female started laying for me. The first batch seemed to have been infertile, but I just put that off to the move. This second time around we lost power for a bit so the eggs weren't at the proper temperature for over 24 hours. I gave the female a break to let her rest, but I kept the second batch of eggs in the incubator, just to see. 

The first egg was laid on 9-1-09 and eggs take any where from 16-20 days to hatch. So when 9-18-09 came and went I was kinda bummed. I thought the power being out ruined the eggs. But being lazy, I left them in the incubator.

So this morning I was getting ready for a phone meeting and I kept hearing this peeping. At first I thought it was just my degu talking to me (she does that a lot) but it just kept going on and on. It finally dawned on me to check the incubator! And low and behold, the egg that was laid on 9-1-09 hatched! I quickly got the little fella set up and he's just scooting around the baby tank. So now I have hope for the other eggs!  

And without further ado, here's the little guy. I'll also post updates as they come.

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## Ladydragon

awww congrats on the little guy.  button quail are so cute.

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## Corvid

Aww, I LOVE Button Quail!!
What sort of birds are you feeding? I work with a Harris' I think adult button quail would be a bit too small.
Congrats!!  :Good Job:

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## spygirl

These will eventually be for an American Kestrel. I'm undecided on a male or female at the moment. I flew a female last year, so trying to decide if I want something different this year or not.

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## Jay_Bunny

I think you tried to direct me to a falconry forum once but the link never worked. Did you ever get a link that worked because I would love to learn more. 

Button quail are very cute! I will eventually breed those for my ferrets, but that is a long way off. Congrats on the baby quail!

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## spygirl

Here is a link for an Apprentice forum. 

And here is one for a general falconry forum. 

And this site is called the Modern Apprentice. It's a great place for beginner information. 

If ya need anything else, feel free to send me a PM!

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## xXMNxHerperXx

lol nice, I had a nice trio of buttons for a while till my trio turned to 25 lol now they are living a nice life on my uncles farm.

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## americangypsy

very cute  :Smile: , I am curious is incubation a must for these birds ?  I know when I had doves they were always having babies . I would just give them a nest box and they would take care of the rest . Seeing these pics makes me kind of miss those little buggers . They sure were noisy sometimes though , especially during the mating season . :Rolleyes2:  do you also hand feed them ? I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that unless absolutly necessary . Talk about time consuming. :Smile:

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## spygirl

99.9% of breeders incubate eggs because hens tend not to sit at all. Even when you give them the right conditions (i.e. nest box, nesting material). Some have had luck with it, some haven't. I haven't had any luck with it.  :Razz:  No hand feeding is required. Just super duper fine high protein turkey mash.  :Smile:

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americangypsy (10-07-2009)

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## Jay_Bunny

Thanks a lot! I'll definitely be reading through those!

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## Jason Bowden

Neat-O
I brought a red tailed hawk into a wildlife rescue when I was a teen-ager.  It was a female and named She-ra by the organization.  It was the biggest bird of prey they had ever had brought in.
My boy scout troop later was invited to release the hawk where I had found her.  She had recovered quickly.  They suspect that she was hit by a car, but suffered minimun injuries.
A good buddy and I later attended a series of classes on falconry.  Very interesting, but never had a bird.

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## tigerlily

Awww, it's as cute as a button.   :Giggle:   Sorry I couldn't help myself.

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