Pet Breed Guide NZ
King Quail (Button Quail)
The King Quail, or Button Quail, is a tiny ground-dwelling bird highly popular in New Zealand. Known for cleaning aviary floors, they are quiet, fascinating, and peaceful.
Photo Gallery
NZ Ownership Snapshot
Verified NZ Status- Noise Level
- quiet
- Social Needs
- pairs or small groups
Legal to keep in NZ. King Quail (Excalfactoria chinensis) are popular aviary floor birds in NZ. No permit required.
Breed Snapshot
- Size
- Small: ~14 cm; ~40 g
- Lifespan
- 3–5 years
- Origin
- Asia / Australia
- Care Focus
- Shy, ground-dwelling, active, quiet, skittish
- NZ Price
- NZD $20–$60 per bird; often sold in pairs
- Annual Vet Cost
- NZD $80–$150 for avian vet consult; find an avian vet before buying
Personality Scores
Origins & History
The King Quail (Excalfactoria chinensis), also widely known in New Zealand and globally as the Button Quail or Chinese Painted Quail, is the smallest species of true quail in the world. Native to wide areas of Asia and northern Australia, they inhabit dense, wet grasslands. Reaching a tiny size of only 12 to 14 cm, they are famously smaller than a standard chicken egg when hatched. Because of their tiny size, quiet calls, and ease of breeding, they are incredibly popular aviary floor birds in New Zealand.
The Perfect Aviary Clean-up Companion
In New Zealand, King Quails are rarely kept as handleable house pets; instead, they serve a vital function in outdoor aviaries:
- Aviary Floor Cleaners: As ground-dwelling birds, they occupy the very bottom layer of the aviary. They spend their days foraging, scratching, and consuming seeds dropped by finches, budgies, or canaries housed in the upper levels. This clean-up behaviour significantly reduces wasted seed and prevents pests (like mice) from being attracted to the aviary floor.
- Peaceful Cohabitation: They are exceptionally peaceful and can be safely housed alongside smaller, non-aggressive species. For example, they make excellent cage mates for Gouldian Finches or Zebra Finches, which occupy the upper branches and leaves. To read general aviary mixing tips, check the SPCA NZ bird care advice.
- Social Setup: King Quails should always be kept in pairs (one male, one female) or small trios. Keeping multiple males together will trigger territorial fighting. They are shy and require low ground cover, such as tussocks, dry grass, or hollow logs, to hide when startled.
Diet & Nutrition
While they clean up dropped seed, King Quails still require a complete, balanced diet to thrive.
- Base Diet: Dropped seeds must be supplemented with a high-protein gamebird starter or specialized quail crumble.
- Foraging & Greens: They relish finely chopped greens (spinach, chicory), grated carrots, and small live food such as mealworms.
- Breeding Diet: Laying females require high calcium levels. Ensure fine grit and crushed eggshells are always accessible on the aviary floor.
For details on the colourful finches that often share their aviaries, you can read our Gouldian Finch guide.
Temperament & Handling
King Quails are naturally shy, skittish, and easily startled. If scared, they have a defense mechanism called 'flushing', where they fly straight up at high speed. In low aviaries, this can cause head injuries, so soft mesh tops or low aviary roofs padded with foam are recommended. They do not enjoy being held or petted. They are ornamental, fascinating birds to observe as they forage on the ground, making soft, piping calls.
Fun Facts
Fact 1
King Quail chicks are so incredibly tiny when hatched that they can easily escape through standard 1.2 cm wire aviary mesh.
Fact 2
A female King Quail is a prolific egg-layer, capable of laying an egg daily that weighs up to 15% of her own body weight.
Fact 3
When startled, they fly straight up like a helicopter, a defense mechanism known as 'flushing' to escape predators in wild grass.
Fact 4
Males display a behaviour called 'tidbitting', where they find a tasty seed or insect, make a soft call, and drop it for the female.
Fact 5
They are also known as 'Chinese Painted Quail' due to the male's beautiful, ornate black, white, blue, and chestnut chest markings.
Related Breeds
Blue-fronted Amazon Parrot
The Blue-fronted Amazon is a medium-sized green parrot from South America, marked by blue across the forehead and yellow on the crown and cheeks, and it suits experienced keepers rather than first-time bird owners. Outgoing, playful and often boisterous, it is an accomplished talker that can repeat words and phrases with real clarity. It is also genuinely loud, calling most at dawn and dusk, and adolescents commonly move through a bluffing stage that calls for patient, consistent handling. A lifespan of 40 to 60 years makes this a decades-long commitment. Daily care means fresh food and water, spot cleaning, and two to four hours of supervised time out of the cage, with rotating destructible toys and training sessions to head off the boredom that shows up as feather plucking or aggression. Best suited to a settled, experienced household with daily time and tolerance for noise.
Bourke's Parakeet
Bourke's Parakeet is a small, softly coloured parrot from inland Australia, rosy pink below with a grey-brown back and blue in the wings, and it is one of the gentler options for a first-time bird owner. It is quiet by parakeet standards, offering melodic chirps rather than squawking, and it is crepuscular, so most of its activity falls around dawn and dusk while the day passes in dozing and gentle foraging. Bourkies are docile, rarely bite, and become tame with steady, unhurried handling, though they tend to enjoy company more than cuddling and are not mimics. They do best in pairs or small groups, with a roomy cage, varied perches, chewable toys and supervised flight in a bird-proofed room. A lifespan of 8 to 12 years and soft vocalisations make them workable in flats and quiet homes that want a calm, undemanding bird.
Budgerigar (Budgie)
The Budgerigar, or budgie, is a small long-tailed seed-eating parrot from Australia and one of the most widely kept companion birds in the world. It is lively, inquisitive and intensely social: budgies live in large flocks in the wild, so a single bird needs either a companion budgie or committed daily human interaction to stay settled. They are bright enough to learn to step up, perform simple tricks and mimic speech, males more readily than females. Wild birds are green and yellow with black scalloping on the wings, while selective breeding has produced blue, white, yellow, grey and pied colour mutations. Care is straightforward rather than trivial: fresh food and water twice daily, a pellet-based diet with seed as a treat, spot cleaning, and 30 to 60 minutes of supervised flight in a bird-safe room. Their small size suits apartments, though near-constant chirping makes them a poor match for a noise-sensitive household.
Caique
The Caique is a small, stocky South American parrot represented by two species, the Black-headed and the White-bellied, both bold, comical and relentlessly busy. Roughly 23 to 25 cm long and 150 to 170 grams, it carries a large personality in a compact frame and is better known for its hopping gait across flat surfaces than for talking, although it mimics sounds and chirps freely. Noise sits at a moderate level rather than a piercing one. A Caique needs at least two to four hours of supervised time out of the cage each day, the largest enclosure a home can fit, and a steady rotation of chewable and foraging toys, since a bored bird slides quickly into plucking or aggression. With a lifespan of 25 to 40 years, it fits an active, sociable household that is home often and ready for a decades-long companion.