Baby quail are a bit like baby chickens, but much, much faster. I don’t mean how fast they move, but everything about development of a quail is faster.
It is said that baby quail are born knowing that they are “damn delicious”. They run around the incubator as they hatch, even with half the egg still attached to them.
They bounce quickly between being extremely fast, zipping around the brooder, and then falling asleep. When they sleep they look dead. I cannot tell you have many times I have woken up a quail because they look dead.
You want to make sure that you are using a water system that your quail are not going to fall into and drown. They are tiny birds.
They require a very high protein food, a non-medicated starter crumb of 24% protein or higher.
We use a thick layer of pine shavings in the bottom of our brooder. They will quickly start scratching and dust bathing in it.
Quail mature very quickly, developing feathers just days after hatching.