10 day old quail fighting/panicking at night??

[Kel60]

i dont know what is up with these guys. their my first quail, we have three chickens but we did not raise those from eggs.
i hatched these 10 days ago, aside from a few difficult nights as i keep them i a large tank in my room for now. (wow are they loud) they never showed any signs of aggression to each other. and at 10 days old i wouldn't think hormonal chaos would have started yet.
this is what happens. no fighting during the day. but about an hour after the lights go out. i hear a loud screech, and then absolute chaos erupts. all 7 are sprinting around the tank screaming and flapping and bashing themselves into the glass and trying to ram the lid.
first time it happened i thought one of my snakes somehow escaped and got into the tank, that's the kind of chaos im talking about im worried their going to hurt themselves with the failing. once i turn the light on they all kinda stop and huddle, a few in each corner for a minute before its suddenly business as usual. then they'll go back to sleep.

i would assume someone is attacking everyone else but maybe not? i have no idea who the trouble maker is if that's the case, by the time im up everyones screaming and i cant find an instigator. and why wouldn't a trouble maker be attacking anyone during the day?
they are slightly different ages if that matters. they hatched over 3 days. the oldest 3 are 10days and the youngest two are 7 days old.

their in a forty gallon breeder glass tank with screen lid with a heat lamp during the day and a ceramic heater at night, as well as two boxes as hides which they love to snuggle up in. i wouldn't think they have any real reason to feel unsecured or anything?

thoughts?

should i try and separate the youngest two? i dont even know if their the ones getting attacked.

 

[Duckbreeder2020]

Separate them into 3 groups. This EXACT thing happened with me. Take the youngest one and keep them together in a separate thing. Then take 3 or 4 in a different thing. Then the other ones in another separate thing. Tell me how that goes

 

[Kel60]

i can maybe take out the two youngest, i dont have enough heat lamps for everyone if i did three groups, ill have to look at what iv got to work with in the morning.

is it just picking on the smallest sort of aggression then you think?

 

[RainbowHen]

Are they panicking with the sudden loss of light?

 

[vall]

Look for the one standing still, that's the one squawking usually. Since it's only at night - what temp are they at day and night, is it the same? I remove my heat lamp around 10 days as long as the room temp is 70+.

 

[Kel60]

85 or so during the day, drops to mid 70s at night now, i started turning the ceramic heater down a bit yesterday.

it doesn't happen right when the lights go out. its happened the last three nights running. first time was maybe and hour after lights out second time was at 2am and today was again about an hour+ after lights out.

they do chirp and scuffle around a bit when lights go out but they settle down without any issue. its only later they have their freak out.

as for looking for one standing still, oh boy. no one is standing still when this happens. i specifically looked for the three oldest when this happens. i figured if anyone was getting nippy id be them but their the biggest offenders in the 'ram the lid with everything they've got' club. im just lucky they cant quite reach the lid yet but i imagine thats going to change soon. those three have most of their wing feathers at this point.

 

[Kel60]

Well I was watching them just now with only my phone screen for light and caught a freakout. My oldest girl was sitting up on top of the one hides pecking at the glass then flailed suddenly and tries to do the vertical take off thing, only she did a belly flop into the rest of them and scared everyone.

So.....scared of her own reflection I guess? could be the reflections only happening at night because of the lack of light. Which would explain why it's not happening during The day.

Has anyone had quail get panicky at reflections before?

I'll Give them a nightlight and see how they do.

 

[ButtonBag]

Guarantee you they are afraid of the dark, mine were until they were a few weeks old too and needed a low night light.

 

[Pandaisy]

I think they are afraid of the dark. The same thing happend to me. It scared the hell out of me because they wouldn't stop running into things and jumping over each other like crazy. I kept a little light on with a dimmer and it stopped immediately. Every night I would dim the lights a bit more until they got used to the darkness. I guess not having a mother watching out for them makes them a little more skittish at night.

 

[FoxManor]

Before I got to the part where you saw the freak out I was going to say one or more are getting startled and sending the others into a panic. You know how bird dogs flush birds? The whole group flies up and away to escape danger... birds also do this at night, except when yours do that they hit the enclosure they’re in. Its dark, one gets startled, smacks into the enclosure, falls on or just startled the others who flush and then smack into the enclosure. Basically they’re all panicking because their brains are telling them to flee from danger and the cage is stopping them. I wouldn’t say it’s the dark they’re afraid of, more like in the dark things look different and are startling them because they’re programmed biologically to be more fearful at night. Are these a perching quail or ground dwelling? How big is the enclosure height wise, and how much space are they each getting relative to the cage? Overcrowding can make this worse and having too high but not high of enough cage can be an issue.