Articles

The King Quail Coturnix chinensis

by Luke Sullivan.

Introduction

The king quail is a great bird for the beginning aviculturist. It is easily bred, very inexpensive and fairly easy to manage. King quails are readily available from pet shops, commercial and private breeders and even in markets. You might find that at some places females will cost more than males because of availability. Most clutches hatch with the young consisting of about two thirds male and one third female. The king quail is also known as the chinese quail.

Description

The males cap and wings are brown with faint white streaks and blackish bars. The chest, flanks and sides of face are slate-blue. They have a white crescent from their eye across to their upper chest which and it has a black border and bar going through it. The bill is black, the legs are yellow the eyes are red. The female is dark brown with faint white a black streaks. The throat is white and the females eye is brown. Juveniles at first have the same colouring as females.

Distribution and Habitat

The king quail’s distribution ranges from the northern coast of the Northern Territory and Western Australia and down the eastern coast of Australia all the way to South Australia. It’s range also extends to South-East Asia and India. It is an uncommon bird obviously because it will usually be hiding in thick scrub. The habitat that the king quail inhabits is wet and dense grasslands and often swampy areas.     

Housing

King quails are best housed in planted aviary with lots of scrub and small shrubs on the floor for them to hide in. A planted aviary also attracts insects which is a food source for them. They can be housed in a mixed collection with finches, parrots, doves and softbills. Most of these birds don’t interact with the quail apart from when they are on the ground because the quails are pretty much flightless apart from small leaps into the air when frightened. A spacious aviary is required for king quails because if the birds feel cramped or get cornered by a person in the aviary they will get a fright and sometimes they will leap into the air hitting the walls or roof of the aviary and sometimes injuring themselves. I think a wider well planted finch aviary is suitable rather than a long narrow flight housing parrots. I usually put hollow logs with no ends on them on the floor of the aviary. The quails love running through them and hiding in them. They will also hide in hollow logs with one end sealed.

Feeding

A seed mixture should be available to the king quail. A finch mix is suitable for the seed mixture. King quails also take amounts of green-food and they love earth worms and most other insects. When I move logs on the ground they run after the worms and slaters that are revealed. The water should be elevated off the ground so that it doesn’t get filled with dirt and sand that is flicked around by the birds. King quails will also eat the left over food that is dropped by the other birds that are eating above ground level.

Breeding

King quails breed in the wild for most of the year except for July and August. This seems to be pretty much the same in captivity with them laying multiple clutches throughout the year except for the colder months like June, July and August. The hen will lay her eggs sometimes in just a corner of the aviary or under a long grass plant or other times a small nest will be made from materials such as grass and leaf litter. The eggs are usually laid where there is shelter available either if they are laid in a nest or not. An easy way to provide a shelter or nesting place is to turn a small gardening pot upside down and cut an entrance square for the quail. A normal clutch size is between 4 and 10 eggs with usually only half hatching. The eggs are a light brown colour and sometimes they are speckled. Only the female sits on the eggs and incubation lasts about 14 days. The young are walking just about as soon as they have hatched. The are very small and look like tiny fluff-balls. Be careful when walking around in the aviary because it is very easy to look past a hatchling and accidentally step on it. If there is a pond or water bowl in the aviary where the quails can get to it, empty it just before the eggs are ready to hatch. The reason for this is that the young can quite easily drown in this water. Another method you can use is putting pebbles in the water bowls or ponds close together so the hatchlings can’t fit through the gaps. The young birds should be removed from the aviary once they have acquired their full adult feathers or else the parents may start attacking their offspring. King quails are sometimes aggressive. In the breeding season when the male is interested in mating he gets exceptionally aggressive and virtually rips up the female when he is trying to mate with her and she doesn’t accept his call to mate. If there are a number of males in the one aviary when there are other females in there they may fight as well. To stop this from happening I try not to have just single pairs in the aviary by themselves. I think a good breeding ratio is 1 male to 2 or 3 females this way there are no other males to fight with and the one male in the aviary will not just tire out one female but if one hen isn’t working he can go onto the next. You can also have more than one bird sitting on eggs at the same time this way. One disadvantage of this breeding method is that king quails seem to do is if more than one hen is sitting on eggs and one clutch hatches all of the birds will stop sitting and think that it’s their eggs that have hatched. The birds should only be allowed to rear three broods a season or the females will become week resulting in not as good breeding results.

Behaviour

When moving, king quails usually dart to where they are going and run very quickly but if they are walking around looking for food they will walk around slowly bobbing their head like a chicken. Their call is very attractive but is not heard very often and it consists of three or four high pitched notes strung together. It seems that dawn and dusk is the prime time for quails. I often see them running around in the aviary looking quite active after dark. If a sprinkler system is hooked up with the aviary or even if a sprinkle of a hose wets the branches of shrubs and grasses they will not go under the spray of water but brush themselves through the wet foliage. Often it takes a little while to find them in the aviary because the are hiding under the leaves and branches of plants. When I housed my king quails in my lorikeet aviary (I now house them in my finch aviary) I saw one fluff up and lay an egg in the corner of the shelter (it was infertile because there were no males in the aviary at the time), as soon as it got up and walked away from the egg a rainbow lorikeet dived down to the ground and ate the egg full with the shell. I was amazed that such a thing happened right in front of my eyes. This has continued since.

Mutations

There are 2 other mutations of king quail commonly kept in Australia other than the normal variety and they are both attractive birds. They are cinnamon and silver blue. The cinnamon is obviously a cinnamon colour or a lighter brown than the normal female and the silver blue mutation which is silver all over and the distinguishing markings of the male are diluted. The cinnamon mutation is about the same price as the normal and the silver blue increases by a small amount.

Summary

I think the king quail is a great bird for the beginning aviculturist with it’s easy management, freely breeding, very inexpensive prices ($5.00 for a pair of normals in the societies price guide)  and it’s compatibility. Another great aspect for the beginner is there are no licensing requirements (in Victoria) for keeping this bird. It is even a good bird for the experienced aviculturist. I fully recommend them to anyone with or without a collection of birds already.

References

J.D. Macdonald. 1973. The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian Birds (by Common Name). Reed Books.

Simpson & Day. 1993. Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Penguin Books, Australia