What went wrong? Quail murders

[Skankiewicz]

Hi quail friends!

We have been having a tough time with our quail here in Phoenix recently.

First was the heat 110+ for 2 months decimated our little flock and replacement babies- we lost probably 15 birds total.

Now that is cooler we got the incubator out and hatched 9 eggs! One chick died from something genetic but the others thrived until feathered out.

We followed the advice of "slightly rednecked" on YouTube and put them out at 2.5-3 weeks old so our older ones Ida,Bob,and Kevin wouldn't see them as a threat. And at first it was fine. We put them in the coop at night to protect from supposed predators.

The first night went fine. The second evening I came out to find the oldest chick dead in the external bird cage Ida likes to lay eggs in and Kevin being all territorial about it. So we butchered Kevin and rearranged the aviary.

We put everyone back in the coop thinking the aggressive Kevin was gone- they should be fine.The second night of this we woke to 3 of them killed in the coop. The next day one went just missing.

Now we are down to 3, 2 males and a female.That night we put just the babies in the coop and left the adults out. A night went by then we found one of the males dead in the coop. So we gave up on locking anyone in anything. This morning the female was dead outside the coop.

All of the injuries endured were head injuries with eyes removed. Only a few had evisceration wounds. I assumed this was concurrent with quail vs quail wounds.

Now our questions:
1. Is releasing feathered out 2.5-3 week old quails the problem?
2. Is there a better way to integrate them?
3. Is another predator part of this or did we just have an aggressive hatch?
4. We have 2 incubators ready to hatch out soon. Should we just butcher this lot and start over before putting the new babies in?

Thanks for the advice!
The Kankiewicz Family

We have up on cooping them at night

 

[Nabiki]

Are you certain it was quail on quail? Any evisceration at all makes me think predator, not quail on quail violence. Can you post pictures of your setup? Pics of the dead birds would also help.

 

[Kiki]

I avoid integrating birds at all costs.

Can you post a few clear pictures of your setups/cages?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

4. We have 2 incubators ready to hatch out soon. Should we just butcher this lot and start over before putting the new babies in?

Pictures of your set up.. sounds like a predator to me. Any opening not covered in 1/2 inch hardware cloth should be.. as the golden standard for "predator resistant".

Sorry for you losses!

 

[Kiki]

I am in Houston and our heat was near your level all summer and I didn't lose one bird so I am really curious to see your cages.

What are you feeding them?

 

[Whiskybear]

Head area damage is quail M.O. But any evisceration says something else; they just don’t do that. I would suspect rodents.

 

[Skankiewicz]

Head area damage is quail M.O. But any evisceration says something else; they just don’t do that. I would suspect rodents.

Only thing we have in this neighborhood is roof rats? Maybe?

 

[Skankiewicz]

Miss Hydra. May her death show us how to protect others. Head wounds and both eyes gone, it's hard to see the under wing damage but lots of feathers lost.

 

[Skankiewicz]

Run area from the top

run area from fan side

Run area and coop

Inside the coop

 

[Skankiewicz]

I have plans to build a complete aviary/greenhouse around this whole thing. But this is where it is now.

Sorry I didn't have any pics of the other birds, they went out with the trash bin on Thursday.

If it is rats, how do I fortify what I have and build better for the future? Chicken wire on the bottom of the coop to start?

Lastly, why are the big ones doing fine? Is it because they can fly away better?

Thank you