Japanese Quail

Looks how to spot one

Short, close-fitting feathers

A round, compact little bird with a short tail and short legs, built for life on the ground. The wild-type plumage is a mottled mix of browns and buff with a pale stripe over the eye, which gives excellent camouflage in grass. Adult males usually have a plain rusty-brown breast, while females have a paler breast speckled with dark spots, which makes the two easy to tell apart in the wild colour.12

Personality what they are like

Calm, busy little ground birds that spend their day foraging, scratching and dust bathing. They are naturally a bit flighty and tend to shoot straight upwards when startled, so gentle, steady handling and a quiet setting help them settle. Males announce themselves with a short, repeated crowing call, while females are quieter.812

Daily activity how busy a day looks

Active foragers that like to walk, run and scratch through litter rather than fly. A floor with sand, shavings or straw lets them forage, and a sandy dust bath is used several times a day. Pecking objects and scattered food keep them occupied.81

Grooming and care the hands-on bits

They keep their own feathers in order by dust bathing, so a dry sand bath is the main grooming need. Provide a soft or flexible roof so a sudden upward jump does not hurt them, and at least 30 cm of headroom. Clean water and fresh litter should be kept up daily.81

Home where they are happiest

A floor pen or aviary is better than a small wire cage. Commercial guidance gives a minimum of about 145 cm2 of floor per bird, but welfare guidance favours more space with solid, littered flooring, hiding cover (plants, screens or hay) and a dust bath. Enclosure height of at least 30 cm with a soft roof. Egg laying is supported by about 14-18 hours of light per day. Young chicks need warmth of around 35 C in their first week, lowered step by step each week.84

Food basics what goes in the bowl

In the wild they eat grass seeds such as millet and panicum plus insects, larvae and small worms, with grit. In captivity a high-protein game bird or quail feed is used: about 25% protein as a starter and around 24% for laying birds. An adult eats roughly 14-18 g of feed a day. Fresh water must always be available.2147

Company who they like around

Sociable birds that should not be kept alone. Good setups are all-female groups, a pair of males, or mixed groups with no more than one male to four females (one male to two or three females is common for breeding).84

The story where it all began

Japanese quail were first kept in Japan roughly 800-900 years ago, and for a long time they were prized for their voices, with birds entered into singing contests. From the early 1900s Japanese breeders turned to selecting them for egg laying, and a quail egg industry was thriving by around 1940. Much of that stock was lost during the Second World War, and the modern domestic and laboratory lines were rebuilt from the few birds that remained. From the late 1950s the species became a popular research animal thanks to its small size and very fast generation time, and it has since been used in genetics, embryology and developmental studies. Today it is the most widely kept domestic quail in the world, raised for eggs and meat and increasingly as a backyard pet.1297

Recognised by the official bits

IUCN Red List (wild population)

The wild species is listed as Near Threatened.2

Taxonomy

Treated as its own species, Coturnix japonica, separate from the closely related common quail (Coturnix coturnix); older literature sometimes calls it Coturnix coturnix japonica.1

Domestic colour varieties

Keepers and breeders recognise many named colour lines such as Pharaoh (wild type), Italian, Manchurian Golden, Tibetan, Rosetta, English White and Tuxedo; there is no single international breed-standard body for these.7