FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE DIETARY REQUIREMENTS OF QUAIL AND THEIR KEEPING AND BREEDING

摘要

I was interested by Jack Eitniear and Terry Becherer's article on dietary considerations when breeding Montezuma Quail Cyrtonyx montezumae (Vol. 118, No. 1, pp.6-11 (2012)). I began keeping quail in the early 1980s, when a friend passed onto me a handful of Bobwhite Colinus virginianus eggs he could not get to hatch. I managed to hatch them without difficulty and was hooked - though I was yet to master rearing the chicks.Quail, Their Breeding and Management by Gary Robbins (1983) was at the time the only source of information about keeping and breeding quail, so the following year I set up pretty much as the author advised and bought my first quail - a pair of CaliforniaCallipepla californica. Over the next few years my collection increased to include three to five pairs each of 10 species and one subspecies, including Mountain Quail Oreortyx picta, Mearn's Quail C. montezumae mearnsi and Gambel's Quail C. gambelii, which I imported privately from the USA.