Housing Males

[FirstTimeClucky]

I have some surplus male quail. I started with two, now after my latest hatch I have one more. I don't keep my quail for meat, so I have no interest in killing and processing them.

Right now my two older males are in separate adjoining cages. They can't see each other but they spend much of their time running up and down the solid partition between their cages. The baby male is still with the rest of the chicks for now. I don't want to keep the baby male with his siblings when they grow up because I want to minimize inbreeding.

I'm wondering if the males can be kept together in groups or if they need to be housed separately. For a while I tried keeping my two older males together, but they spent 100% of their time trying to breed and wrestle with each other, along with ripping out each other's feathers. I didn't think it was fair to consign them to that kind of life.

Would it be OK to put all three of the males together once the baby grows up? Or do there need to be more males to balance out the aggression? They would be provided with several hiding places to get away from each other. I don't have enough hens to put with them, only 3 right now.

 

[mdees88]

I had 12 in a 9 sq ft cage from when they were 3 weeks old to 6 weeks old and they did just fine. I currently have 25 that are 4 weeks old in a 9 square foot cage and they are not fighting. I'm fixing to put half of them into another cage I'm building.

Unfortunately, I don't know how well they will behave after 6 weeks of age (when they are sexually mature). I usually cull mine around 6 weeks of age....

 

[Dimples_vixi]

I’ve had 4 housed together until around 16 weeks of age. The larger ones tried to mate with the smallest male all the time so I’m not sure how well males will do living together long term.

 

[FirstTimeClucky]

I’ve had 4 housed together until around 16 weeks of age. The larger ones tried to mate with the smallest male all the time so I’m not sure how well males will do living together long term.

I'm thinking it would probably be better if there were more of them together, to spread the aggression and breeding around. I would also give them multiple hides. Right now I have two adults and one young male. One of the adults is plucking his breast. When my younger hen chicks are mature enough (there are four of them) I'm planning to put two with one male and two with another. The third would live on his own. I may hatch more eggs, but I just set some chicken eggs in the incubator.

 

[Nuchi]

Reducing the hours of light down to 8 hours a day is what I read others do for longer term keeping. I think it makes them think its dead of winter and they go out of the breading frenzy, calming down.

 

[Acre4Me]

The males will fight, as you already know. Hiding places might help, but they will still fight. Also, they will be able to hear the other females, even if they cannot see them. Also, a better ratio of M:F is 1:4 or more. Those males can overbreed the females, stressing them out and causing lower egg production.

 

[Erkenstein]

I've had ten males together long-term and it was like Thunderdome. It's very difficult to get rid of males because no one else wants them either. I learned to process quail and, in my opinion, it's better to do that than to let them rape and skin each other to death.

Three males may be okay, but you should know that birds can be vicious.