OzChickens
Chirping
- Dec 22, 2021
- 20
- 27
- 71
I have 6 quail in a small pen, approx 8 weeks old, raised from eggs I incubated, just witnessed one quail starting to peck the others. drawing blood and removing feathers. I've separated the injured from the uninjured into another pen for now. think I've identified the aggressive quail by the blood spattered on it's chest.
reading a few blogs seems my causes are.
- establishing pecking order.
- small coop.
- possibly stressed by heat (summer in Brisbane, Australia)
- stressed (this was more noticable after I moved the quail into another box while cleaning out their small pen.
- nothing other than feeder & water in pen, nothing for the birds to do other than eat, sleep and fight each other.
I'll have another attempt at sexing these quail, might have identified the rooster via this event.
I'm in the process of setting up a larger pen and ability to separate any birds attacked by others. might have to cull/harvest the aggressive bird. (will be my first meat harvest)
anything else I should be looking at to resolve this behaviour?
reading a few blogs seems my causes are.
- establishing pecking order.
- small coop.
- possibly stressed by heat (summer in Brisbane, Australia)
- stressed (this was more noticable after I moved the quail into another box while cleaning out their small pen.
- nothing other than feeder & water in pen, nothing for the birds to do other than eat, sleep and fight each other.
I'll have another attempt at sexing these quail, might have identified the rooster via this event.
I'm in the process of setting up a larger pen and ability to separate any birds attacked by others. might have to cull/harvest the aggressive bird. (will be my first meat harvest)
anything else I should be looking at to resolve this behaviour?
