Button Quail Size and Care

Take a peek at these tiny ornamental birds.

By Dr. Stephenie Slahor
Updated on October 9, 2024
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by Adobestock/susan flashman

Learn the basics of button quail size, button quail care, and different button quail varieties for breeding and raising.

Quail come in about 130 different species, with about 70 of those species raised domestically around the world, and about a half-dozen of those favored in the U.S. Nearly all species are feathered in browns, tans, grays, and whites, and are ground dwellers that prefer to walk or scurry rather than fly. When they fly, it’s a “flush,” almost always straight upward. Because of the boxy shape of their bodies and squared-off tails, they aren’t good fliers but will use flight as a quick means of necessary escape from predators.

Button Quail Varieties

Among the more novel quail are ones referred to as “button quail,” so named for being exceedingly small compared with other quail species. Although the “quail” part of their name sounds like they’re part of the Phasianidae group of pheasants and partridges to which quail belong, they’re actually hemipodes in the Turnicidae family. In nature, they live in warm climates in Asia, Australia, Africa, and parts of Europe. Their feathers are effective camouflage for hiding among twigs, bushes, and rocks to escape from the mammals, birds, and reptiles that are their natural predators.

Button quail have 17 of their species in the Turnix (or Coturnix) genus, also known as “common” button quail, but one species is in the Ortyxelos genus that makes it what’s referred to as a “quail-plover,” more plover than quail! While at first glance button quail look like other quail species, except for being smaller, they lack a crop and hind toe (hence the “hemipodes” name, which translates to “half-foot”).

Buttonquail perched on roak at Bhigwan bird sanctuary Maharashtr
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