A total quail re~do

[Crazy4Chicks]

I have 4 coturnix quail 3 females and 1 male in a 24x24 wire cage in my spare room they get plenty of everything - food water treats -

I have noticed one of the females has gotten very aggressive toward all the others and has pecked the eyes out of one of the females and she has been beating up my male now

I feel badly for the one with no eyes so I am going to cull her - I dont want her to suffer and I dont want her to have to live a solo life because I am afraid others would pick on her too

I know I am going to cull the aggressive female I am not going to own an animal that makes life H*** for any other animal here

that leaves me with my white male and a brown female -- in the pen next door to them I have 5 younger - all have the roo coloring on thier chest ( no spots on any of them ) 3 have already been crowing - so they are freeze bound

so here is the question after I cull the blind one and the mean one and the 5 roos

what do I do with the 2 left ? do I order more eggs and hatch out a few more birds ? Do I cull them too and start over with all new birds ?

I have a coffee cup full of eggs but they have been in the frig for weeks now so I would have to order eggs

but on the plus side if I cull everyone I can get eggs from difrent colored birds and have to diffrent colors going each pen is the same size and I can keep 1 male and up to 3 females in each group

so what would you do in my place ?


or I can just cull them all - make one huge cage for my 2 rats and wait till I get into a better place and make outside pens for the quail

I still have my flock of buttons and they are doing fine

 

[First To Hatch]

The way you explained your situation it sounded like you'd be more happy with culling your flock and restarting over again with whatever you'd like, so I'd do that, in fact I'm working on doing that but my eggs didn't hatch so I'm hoping I can get eggs and a new incubator rolling by next friday.

 

[Crazy4Chicks]

well not really more happy ,but I know my poor girl is hurting with her eyes being picked like they are - and I cant stand to see any animal suffer

and the one is aggressive I am afriad she will only get worse and I dont think it fair to keep her around so she can hurt any of the others

the extra roos well there is no way I can afford to keep a pen with 5 males and keep them well feed - I really dont think they would be happy and at some point would start fighting with each other

my white male is a sweet bird and very pretty - if I keep him and the last female would they welcome new birds in the cage - it would only be 2 new females but would that cause fighting ?

if I can introduce new birds to my white male and his nicer lady I would gladly keep them


the only reason I suggested a total re~do is I thought it would be easier than trying to introduce new birds into the cage and having all the fussing and picking while everyone figured out who was who

 

[monarc23]

do what works best for your situation.

do you NEED ot cull those last two? No and yes. No if the roo doesnt over breed her (which if he's a "sensitive" roo he wont hurt her i have a few roos i can trust with just one hen but i find that its rare-ish to expect every roo to be okay with just one hen) and yes if he starts tearing at her head and back....otherwise the only reason to cull them is if you decide to

That's the wonderful thing about coturnix, you can replenish them in no time!

ETA: Oh as for introducing...well what SHelley does seems to work so if you can do it this may be an option...when it's time to introduce them (i reccomend waiting until the hens and other roos if any... are atleast 5 1/2 weeks old if 6 weeks old) put them ALL in a new cage around new surroundings and watch htem carefully for any grumpiness. Got any grumps take them out for a time out for a few days if you can

 

[macnugget]

I had some old eggs in the frig and put them in the bator and all hatched but 2 the other 8 made it fine. What do you got to loose
Nick Rizzo

 

[shelleyd2008]

Yep, that's exactly how I do it, everyone gets moved to a new home at the same time, gives them something to distract. The only ones I didn't do this with was my jumbos, I put 1 male and 3 females in a pen with 1 male and 7 females...all the new girls were enough of a distraction for them!

ETA: Culling is totally up to you, but if you don't have to, I wouldn't. Like Niki said, it's so easy to get new stock built up, it takes no time at all. I didn't put my young hens in with older males until they were ready to start laying (jumbos again, about 7-8 weeks old), so the male wouldn't beat them up for not giving up the goods.

 

[Crazy4Chicks]

well I have not done anything as of yet - all 3 girls laid today ( including the one with the bad eye problem )

I took another look at her eyes and there is an eye on one side it looks like it got pecked pretty hard so she had it closed every time I looked at her but now it is open alittle she is gettig round great she out ran me I had to chase her around the cage to get her

the other eye has alot more drid blood on it and the lids are totally shut so I think that eye is gone
she is such a sweet girl i hate to cull her -- she has been mated pretty hard and she has a pretty big bald spot on her head ( all 3 of the girls have been mated hard )

if the agressive female does not knock it of I will throw her butt in with the 5 extra roos I am waiting for them to get bigger so I can process them - than I will process her mean rearend along with the 5 males

I would like to get some eggs from a diffrent color of bird I have just for fun and keep my little trio and cull the aggressive one

if I get more eggs I can replace his girl with another one and he will be back up to 3 females again


anyone have eggs for sell

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
Sounds like a good idea. I would wait until she is fully healed before doing anything drastic. The fact that she laid an egg is a good sign.

I would for sure take the aggressive one out. All she's going to do is cause more trouble. She might as well in the other pen, but then again she might not. You'll just have to watch them.

There's not much you can do with the bald spots, other than remove the hens from the roo. If fertile eggs are not an interest you can do this. Even if they are, you can still take the male away, then once or twice a week put him back to fertilize the eggs. That should be enough. The feathers can take at least a month to grow back.

Just a question though, why do you only have 3 females? I know the recommendations are for 1 bird per sq. ft., but I have some 2'x2' cages myself. One has 6 birds and the other has 5. They get along great.

There are a lot of us on here that sell eggs. Mine are $5 for a day's worth of eggs (I have 22 hens, but have been getting around 19 eggs a day). I have 4 different pens-1 is jumbo browns, 1-A&Ms, 1 has dark and rosetta tibetans and tuxedos, and the other has a golden roo over a golden hen, a rosetta hen, a tuxedo rosetta hen, and a pharaoh hen. The only birds I have that are jumbos are the browns.

I have another pen that right now has 2 reds and 2 red/goldens. So far, the reds are a male and female, and I believe the red/goldens are female. They haven't started laying yet, but should anytime now.

Shipping anywhere in the cont. US is $5 for 1 day's eggs, so eggs for 1 day=$11 ($5 for eggs, $5 for shipping, $1 for paypal and materials). Let me know if you are interested.

I have some babies that I just hatched from my birds' eggs in the brooder, if you'd like a pic

 

[Crazy4Chicks]

I checked on them this morning and my little hen was up moving around but is staying as close to the side of the as possible and away from the mean girl and the male in that pen was running away from the mean one everytime she got close to him so I think she may have started bulling him too

so Mrs Mean thing went into the extra roos cage - I will watch and if the boys in there start being mean to her I will go ahead and process her and than process the extra boys in another few weeks when they are a little bigger


the reason I only have 3 hens with him is because I only have a 24x24 cage and thought if I added more hens it would be too crowded and I did not want my birds fighting or anything
can more fit in the cage safely ?

I live intown and dont know if keeping my birds outside in a rabbit hutch is allowed -- plus we have a TON of stray cats around and dogs on the loose and kids that will run into your yard and get into everything ( I really hate where I live )

oh I would love to see pics of your babies !!! I would some eggs from your tuxedo pen those are the prettiest birds !! I will have to wait till I have a free cage - but I would love some

 

[chicken_angler]

Quote:
I have some Coturnix eggs for sale. I know that they are fertile because I always check my eating eggs and they are fertile. I havent had nyone hatch them yet but if you wanted to try a dozen, I would send them to ya for $4.00 a dozen. I dont know about shipping yet though. I have A&Ms and Big Browns in my pens.

Cody!!