The 4 males are of different varieties. They each have 2 or 3 females. We keep them separated (especially when breeding) or yes they do fight. Our fertility rate is pretty high at around 90%, and hatch rate is about 85%.
The 2nd wave that's in question are in the coop on the right. Towards the back where 3 sides are covered. The papas are in the front section.
To answer some of your questions...
That car is usually not there. We had company over last night. However, my car (that has a Hemi and is fairly loud)...
We hatched 3 waves of coturnix (Jumbo, Italian, A&M, & Tibetan) 6, 7 and 8 weeks ago. Some of the ones that are 8 weeks started laying a couple of weeks ago. A few of the 6 week old ones started laying this week. However, NONE of the 7 week old ones have laid any eggs yet...
We have 2 coops...
There's plenty of ventilation.
The babies are in the back where the walls are covered on 3 sides, and they have a heat lamp. We're in Florida, so the lows at night are still upper 70's, and the highs are low 90's. The coop is 5 feet tall. The front where the boys are is secured with hardware...
I've been watching him now for a few hours. I don't know if he's lethargic or depressed, but he's not acting normal. He's moving around, but not darting around like he normally does. He keeps moving away from the other male if he gets close.
He's a quail, not chicken...
His breathing seems fine.
I forgot to add that we recently (3 days ago) segregated off a section of the coop and put in a brooding pen for our week old chicks. Not sure if that matters...
Also, I just went out and gave them some dried mealworms to see if he would...
All of a sudden one of our males can't crow...
When we aren't breeding, we have the 4 males in a separate coop. Hatchet & Tiny Tim together in one side, and Big Boy & Pink Feet on the other side.
Hatchet is normally the most vocal of them all. And very loud!!! He crows all day and night.
When I...
Update...
We had 49 fertile eggs in the 3rd set. 44 hatched. 90% is awesome!!
However, 3 were showing severe neurological symptoms. It actually looked like they were having seizures. We decided to cull them, and put them out of their misery. 1 seemed to have not fully absorbed the yoke sack, but...
Update...
We had 69 in our 2nd set. 61 were fertile, and put into the hatcher on Monday night. 52 of them hatched, and all are healthy and running around in the brooder. So the rise in humidity for almost 5 days doesn't seem to have done any harm. I'll do another update next week when the 3rd...
So today is day 19. No more action in 36 hours. 1 of the pippers had stopped moving. The other 3 hadn't made any progress but I could see them moving. I decided to help them get out and pull the rest of the eggs. The 1 was dead, but the other 3 are chirping and running around. We hadn't candled...
Our incubator has a hatcher box on the bottom. All the literature I've read says they eggs typically hatch on day 18, but some can be early and some late. But I haven't been able to find anything on the effects of a higher humidity on the younger sets.
1st time hatching quail...
We currently have 3 sets in our Sportsman incubator. We put them in 1 week apart from each other. The 1st set (53 eggs) was put in the hatcher on day 15 and the humidity was increased from 45% to 70%. The 1st ones started hatching on day 16. On days 16 and 17, we had...