Quail not laying?

[potatoyay]

Here is a short rundown:

Our ratio is currently 3 males to 3 females. Recently, about a week ago, one of the females (the fourth) escaped and we never found her. Only one female was laying before. We believed she stopped laying due to lack of light, so we added artificial light. She finally laid, but only 1 egg and hasn't laid since. It's been maybe 2 weeks since when she laid.
I'm willing to give her time, I just don't understand what it is. She doesn't seem too awfully stressed and I believe she isn't too overbred since she hasn't had any problems with feather loss.

I've read this: "If they're in the middle of a clutch, they'll abruptly stop laying eggs." And "A stressed hen in the wild is probably reacting to something that would kill her chicks or eat her eggs, such as a predator, or an environmental condition such as heat or cold that would stop them from surviving after they hatch." It has been snowing recently.

 

[Nabiki]

I'm pretty sure the problem is your ratios. 3 males to 3 females is going to cause enough stress for the hens to stop laying even if you don't see any obvious signs of overbreeding. The other possibility would be a predator hanging around, but I would start by fixing the male to female ratio. You could even try a bachelor pad with all of the males and leave the females together. They don't need a male to lay eggs.

 

[007Sean]

Here is a short rundown:

Our ratio is currently 3 males to 3 females. Recently, about a week ago, one of the females (the fourth) escaped and we never found her. Only one female was laying before. We believed she stopped laying due to lack of light, so we added artificial light. She finally laid, but only 1 egg and hasn't laid since. It's been maybe 2 weeks since when she laid.
I'm willing to give her time, I just don't understand what it is. She doesn't seem too awfully stressed and I believe she isn't too overbred since she hasn't had any problems with feather loss.

I've read this: "If they're in the middle of a clutch, they'll abruptly stop laying eggs." And "A stressed hen in the wild is probably reacting to something that would kill her chicks or eat her eggs, such as a predator, or an environmental condition such as heat or cold that would stop them from surviving after they hatch." It has been snowing recently.

I agree with what @Nabiki , has posted....I don't raise Coturnix and haven't in some 40 odd years, things have changed since I raised them....but about the only thing that will make them stop laying is a predator around all the time, ie; dog, cat, hawk, snake, etc...not enough daylight or a disease/illness or in a molting stage.

 

[TheDuckGuy]

I don’t know anything about quail but the ratio is off and I don’t recommend artificial light (Winter is their natural break)

 

[potatoyay]

I don’t know anything about quail but the ratio is off and I don’t recommend artificial light (Winter is their natural break)

Yes, but we had finally gotten them up to age and it was already too late so we just decided to use the light.

 

[potatoyay]

I agree with what @Nabiki , has posted....I don't raise Coturnix and haven't in some 40 odd years, things have changed since I raised them....but about the only thing that will make them stop laying is a predator around all the time, ie; dog, cat, hawk, snake, etc...not enough daylight or a disease/illness or in a molting stage.

In the suburbs, we don't have many natural predators.. we do have cats but she used to lay even with a cat around. That cat would sit and watch them and they wouldn't even seem to care. I believe it may be the ratio?

 

[Nabiki]

In suburbs you get cats, raccoons, 'possums, rats, and hawks, at least. The thing is to start by eliminating the most likely or known probably causes first.

 

[potatoyay]

In suburbs you get cats, raccoons, 'possums, rats, and hawks, at least. The thing is to start by eliminating the most likely or known probably causes first.

Raccoons and opossums, if around, are kept out from our fence. Haven't noticed any rats, cats kill most of them. I don't think I've noticed many hawks either. Cats haven't even been out recently from the snow. I don't think it's a predator problem.

 

[Nabiki]

Raccoons and opossums, if around, are kept out from our fence. Haven't noticed any rats, cats kill most of them. I don't think I've noticed many hawks either. Cats haven't even been out recently from the snow. I don't think it's a predator problem.

I don't think it is either. I think it's too many males.

 

[potatoyay]

I don't think it is either. I think it's too many males.

Would a ratio of 2 males to 3 females be too much? We've decided it's easier to cull one rather than keep them separate.. but my brother has taken a great liking to one of the males (only because it's white, children befuddle me..) and one of our hens sits by this one male every day, and I believe if we cull him she'll become stressed. We're going to incubate eggs once the females start laying, so we'll try and grow our population of females. But would the hens even lay with 2 males, or is that still too many?