Hi. i`m new to all this. I have a female button quail and a japanese painted male one. They`re a great little couple, and i`ve previously had a set of eggs successfully hatch after mother hatching them herself. I brought the mother in with the chicks and she stayed with them for the five weeks. Being totally new to quailing, a couple of silly mistakes on my part and im now back to my two adults. And two seperate quail who dont get on with the adults or each other. I`ve had to separate their chicks from them one by one because of serious bullying issues. I`ve tried separating them temporariliy but as soon as they get back in the quail lodge, they were back to bullying. it only seemed to happen one by one though. after i`d removed one bully, another one seemed to take it`s place. I was beginning to pull my own hair out with frustration giving the quail a run for their money! I did figure out only recently however after reading an item, that the last one i had sharing the lodge with the adults was actually another male which explained a lot. My adult female is now due her eggs any day and im basically wondering if there is any way of keeping them all happy campers, or do i have to keep separating the chicks from the parents. I`m rapidly running out of space in my garden. I was considering building a 5x4 aviary in the next few weeks, but am worried they`ll all kill each other whatever size lodge they`re in. Any ideas anyone? help much appreciated. susie
quail questions
- Thread starter susie66
- Start date
Hi Susie and welcome to the Forum.
I have only hatched quail chicks in an incubator and if you have successfully got a pair to breed, you have done very well as this is quite rare. Mostly they don't sit on eggs or go broody very often, or they give up part way through. So I have no experience of allowing hens to raise their own chicks to maturity, or trying to introduce youngsters to an older established group. However, I had tremendous problems with injuries to the young hens at about 6-8 weeks old, when the males were just coming into sexual maturity and finding out what it was like to be a teenage boy. I got to the stage of dreading whether I would find yet another bloodbath in the cage when I went down in the morning! I don't think this was bullying as such, just injuries mostly to the head where the male had gripped the female when mating and hung on when the thrown off sideways by an unwilling partner, thus tearing off a chunk of skin. Not the sort of injuries resulting from one male bird attacking another. Is this your problem? I did try to sex them, but didn't find this very easy, and like you, I had a couple of males that I was fairly sure were female until they seemed to suddenly change sex overnight and have a go at the girls! Out of the 17 I hatched, I ended up with 11 boys, which didn't help. In the end I took the difficult decision to cull all the boys, and after this the girls lived happily and productively together, they are now 2 and a half years old and still laying prolifically.
I suppose that if you are trying to introduce young males to a pen with an older cock, trouble is likely as the father bird will see them as rivals. Wild quail would disperse at this stage, or a least even in a flock wold have all the space needed to keep clear of more dominant rivals. I think that, with any kind of poultry, its always a problem to know what to do with the boys. You may find that they will live with each other OK in a bachelor group, especially over the winter when not in breeding condition anyway, but you may have to cull them eventually I'm afraid. Trouble is, they are best in a small group of about 4 females to one male, so the females don't get over mated, but inevitably this leads to a surplus of males. My experience of hatching far more boys than girls is apparently not unusual for quail.
The other thing is that quail always take a very long time to adapt to changes in their social group, where this means introducing new birds, so this can be difficult too. You could try what chicken keepers usually do, and split the cage with a wire barrier so the two groups can get to see and know each other through the wire for a week or two - with any poultry, if you just plonk new birds into an established flock without careful introductions, there will be trouble!
I wold be interested to know whether the aggression you report is actually male-on-male, or mating injuries from teenage males on young hens, as evidently these are different problems.
I have only hatched quail chicks in an incubator and if you have successfully got a pair to breed, you have done very well as this is quite rare. Mostly they don't sit on eggs or go broody very often, or they give up part way through. So I have no experience of allowing hens to raise their own chicks to maturity, or trying to introduce youngsters to an older established group. However, I had tremendous problems with injuries to the young hens at about 6-8 weeks old, when the males were just coming into sexual maturity and finding out what it was like to be a teenage boy. I got to the stage of dreading whether I would find yet another bloodbath in the cage when I went down in the morning! I don't think this was bullying as such, just injuries mostly to the head where the male had gripped the female when mating and hung on when the thrown off sideways by an unwilling partner, thus tearing off a chunk of skin. Not the sort of injuries resulting from one male bird attacking another. Is this your problem? I did try to sex them, but didn't find this very easy, and like you, I had a couple of males that I was fairly sure were female until they seemed to suddenly change sex overnight and have a go at the girls! Out of the 17 I hatched, I ended up with 11 boys, which didn't help. In the end I took the difficult decision to cull all the boys, and after this the girls lived happily and productively together, they are now 2 and a half years old and still laying prolifically.
I suppose that if you are trying to introduce young males to a pen with an older cock, trouble is likely as the father bird will see them as rivals. Wild quail would disperse at this stage, or a least even in a flock wold have all the space needed to keep clear of more dominant rivals. I think that, with any kind of poultry, its always a problem to know what to do with the boys. You may find that they will live with each other OK in a bachelor group, especially over the winter when not in breeding condition anyway, but you may have to cull them eventually I'm afraid. Trouble is, they are best in a small group of about 4 females to one male, so the females don't get over mated, but inevitably this leads to a surplus of males. My experience of hatching far more boys than girls is apparently not unusual for quail.
The other thing is that quail always take a very long time to adapt to changes in their social group, where this means introducing new birds, so this can be difficult too. You could try what chicken keepers usually do, and split the cage with a wire barrier so the two groups can get to see and know each other through the wire for a week or two - with any poultry, if you just plonk new birds into an established flock without careful introductions, there will be trouble!
I wold be interested to know whether the aggression you report is actually male-on-male, or mating injuries from teenage males on young hens, as evidently these are different problems.
See this thread in the Photos if Chickens section, http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=77 for help with posting.
Hi All,
Well I have found this pretty interesting as I have had exactly the same problem recently with my CPQ between the youngs and the parents not getting on with each other past the 6th week. I reported that Dad Charley had been quite badly injured, though I couldn't tell for sure by whom. So, just in case, I have had to remove the two young males and they are in a large indoor rabbit cage at the moment. They seem to be getting on well with each other, no signs of fighting or anything like that, in what might look like an overkill for space for them... Almost the equivalent of a football pitch for us. Especially compared to the slightly smaller space the other 4 in their original enclosure have...
I just have two concerns though:
1) The two young males are in the garage because I don't have room anywhere else for their large enclosure. My concern is that it might not be such a great life for them, on their own a lot in the garage - i do have plans to move my craft room to the garage, so they will have my company but that's not for a while. I know I'll probably have to cull them eventually... I just cannot bring myself to doing it just yet... I'm a big softy! Lol
2) i have noticed this morning that Charley was being bullied a little by one of the young females. He's been offering treats of meal worms to all three females with a preference for the mum of the young ones Martha. But one of the young females did try and peck him near his eye... Poor Charley is already featherless on his head because of the injuries caused by his young sons... He really doesn't need more injuries... Is this normal behaviour for a female to bully a male?
Well I have found this pretty interesting as I have had exactly the same problem recently with my CPQ between the youngs and the parents not getting on with each other past the 6th week. I reported that Dad Charley had been quite badly injured, though I couldn't tell for sure by whom. So, just in case, I have had to remove the two young males and they are in a large indoor rabbit cage at the moment. They seem to be getting on well with each other, no signs of fighting or anything like that, in what might look like an overkill for space for them... Almost the equivalent of a football pitch for us. Especially compared to the slightly smaller space the other 4 in their original enclosure have...
I just have two concerns though:
1) The two young males are in the garage because I don't have room anywhere else for their large enclosure. My concern is that it might not be such a great life for them, on their own a lot in the garage - i do have plans to move my craft room to the garage, so they will have my company but that's not for a while. I know I'll probably have to cull them eventually... I just cannot bring myself to doing it just yet... I'm a big softy! Lol
2) i have noticed this morning that Charley was being bullied a little by one of the young females. He's been offering treats of meal worms to all three females with a preference for the mum of the young ones Martha. But one of the young females did try and peck him near his eye... Poor Charley is already featherless on his head because of the injuries caused by his young sons... He really doesn't need more injuries... Is this normal behaviour for a female to bully a male?
