Advice Needed

[Tass]

Hello Guys ... this might be long... I was a storyteller in a previous life ...

So I bought some Quail a couple months back, 10 females and 2 males, which I thought was an excellent deal... Until some things started to go down...
I had some issues from the beginning - with one quail having eye issues and weird scabbing along its back. There are no vets that see birds in my area so I turned to the seller for advice, he was real nice about the whole thing and even collected the injured quail and said I'd get her back once she recovered, I paid the pick up fee and all was well. There was back and forth between myself and the seller over Scabby (the injured bird), and he claimed she was doing well and even started laying again, about a month later, I messaged to enquire and find out when I would get Scabby back, and the seller said she escaped and basically got lost in with the other birds and that she's probably sold. The seller said I would get a replacement bird on the next delivery trip..

Come November, tensions begin rising in the coop, each day a different bird would be injured and I couldn't understand why..... until I started separating the quail to figure out who the aggressor was.. fast forward through injuries and one sudden death, turns out I have 5 males and 5 females (1 deceased , 1 with the seller - bringing the total to 12). I communicated to the seller for advice on swapping out the males for females, to which the response was "I can bring back Scabby but I don't have hens to spare at the moment" I then asked for a time frame of sorts mentioning that even if they are not the same colour females its fine - I just need for the quail to stop injuring each other. Anyways, I have not gotten a response from the seller for the last month and figured Scabby wont be returning to me either.

Quail are not readily available to purchase in my area, with sellers mainly selling fertile eggs and unsexed chicks. Just today a lady was ready to deliver 10 females to my door, but when I requested to pick up instead, she claimed her husband doesn't want to sell the females anymore... I am still on the lookout to find ladies to join my flock, but I am losing hope.

My current situation is - > There are 2 males with the 5 females in the main coop, the other 3 males are in an old parrot cage - there has been a significant reduction of injuries since the separation. The males are far away from the main coop and have been behaving well with each other. ( Just thinking, I'm getting 4 eggs daily, hopefully there isn't another male in there )
I did not anticipate the gender errors and so, I am now lost... I have grown attached to these birds, they all have names and I want to ensure that they are happy... I really don't want the 3 males staying in the parrot cage for forever and I don't want to send them to the freezer either, and then there's the main coop to sort out.... TBH I'm just really bummed over the whole experience and I don't really know what to do going forward...

What is the best way forward from here?

Any advice is welcome..

If you got this far, thank you for reading about my dilemma

 

[nuthatched]

That's a really sketchy seller, the birds are sick and she likely knows it.

 

[WoDia]

My MAIN experience is with Bobwhites and King. If you don’t have a separate building for the 3 males, section off an area in the main building for them. My situation is different, because I have a lot more birds. I house my entire Bobwhite covey (currently 40) together… and, a lot of mine are males. I also have 22 King, and a separate bachelor area works well for them. I provide plenty of hiding spaces for escape from the occasional bullying. I’ve never had any major injuries aside from a few picked-out feathers. I can ONLY tell you what I’d do… definitely find another seller. You’re attached to the group you have, so do your best to keep the bullies separated. Make sure YOURS are healthy, and DON’T introduce any new quail until you know for sure that THEY are healthy and have gone through a quarantine period. Good wishes being sent your way.

 

[Nabiki]

That is not a great situation. Definitely stop working with that seller. If you can, give them a bad review with your experience.

In the meantime, if you are determined to keep your extra boys, you either need to get a lot more hens or you need to keep them permanently separated in a "bachelor pad" where they can't see or hear the girls. This may or may not work come spring when their hormones really start up, but they might get along just fine. There is a much better chance with no hens around, but still not guaranteed.

If you have the space, I would get some hatching eggs from a reputable hatchery such as Myshire Farm. I would recommend Southwest Gamebirds, but they just stopped shipping eggs. They do ship live birds, however, if you want to pay the price for them.

 

[007Sean]

My MAIN experience is with Bobwhites and King. If you don’t have a separate building for the 3 males, section off an area in the main building for them. My situation is different, because I have a lot more birds. I house my entire Bobwhite covey (currently 40) together… and, a lot of mine are males. I also have 22 King, and a separate bachelor area works well for them. I provide plenty of hiding spaces for escape from the occasional bullying. I’ve never had any major injuries aside from a few picked-out feathers. I can ONLY tell you what I’d do… definitely find another seller. You’re attached to the group you have, so do your best to keep the bullies separated. Make sure YOURS are healthy, and DON’T introduce any new quail until you know for sure that THEY are healthy and have gone through a quarantine period. Good wishes being sent your way.

You need to start thinking about separating your covey of 40, especially if you have more males than females....might be easier to separate the females, as you have a smaller number of females to rehouse/pen.

 

[WoDia]

You need to start thinking about separating your covey of 40, especially if you have more males than females....might be easier to separate the females, as you have a smaller number of females to rehouse/pen.

I actually don’t have more males than females. 5 exactly. 35 females. And, it’s winter. They are always kept together until Spring… just like they do in the wild. I’ve been successfully doing that for well over 20 years, but I do thank you for the suggestion.

 

[007Sean]

I actually don’t have more males than females. 5 exactly. 35 females. And, it’s winter. They are always kept together until Spring… just like they do in the wild. I’ve been successfully doing that for well over 20 years, but I do thank you for the suggestion.

Well, I guess it was just the way you worded it! I do pretty much the same thing, they run together during fall/winter but earlier in the year, usually by February, I separate them and have a better ratio of male to female.

 

[WoDia]

Well, I guess it was just the way you worded it! I do pretty much the same thing, they run together during fall/winter but earlier in the year, usually by February, I separate them and have a better ratio of male to female.

It sounds like we may do things in a similar way. I understand the confusion. I really needed to be more clear about that. Again, I thank you and appreciate it!

 

[scyllarus]

Ah, yeah, quail do that. We got attached to one of our first males and it's...been a wild ride. If I had known where we would be with this bird, I would have culled him the first time he got violent.

In short - as much as you don't want to, you're better off culling the extra males. They don't really seem to get better as they age, like some chicken roosters will do, they just get more set in their violent ways - at least, that's been our experience. If you can't cull them, making their own bachelor enclosure and keeping 4 males in it (1 male with 5 females is fine and a more relaxed ratio) would be best, but one of them is likely to become the "hen" in the cage and may get bullied - even to death.

Lemme sing you the ballad of Sugar (the short version) - we kept one male from our very first birds, and he started scalping the other birds one day. No specific reason, though I think these birds tended to scream when upset and riled him up more. We put him in solitary as a time out (he tried scalping them immediately after), we tried longer time outs in the bachelor cage (scalping immediately + bullying the other males), we tried removing the offending birds and keeping him in with the covey (decided to scalp the other male, despite having 8-9 hens available). During these shenanigans, several people in the community took a shine to this mass-scalper and now we can't kill him...so I ordered duckling-sized diapers and we've been working on making him a pet bird (and before I get yelled at, yes, I know. He's not getting his social needs met and he's a miserable little creature - he crows incessantly unless he's in his diaper, he still won't walk normally when in the diaper, he hates being handled, he seems lost and hides when he's out and about.) Quail don't like being alone, and males don't like not having females. There's simply no arguing with their biology.

 

[Tass]

Hello all and thank you for all your advices and responses - I really appreciate it.

We have made adjustments to the coop to separate out 4 of the males and leave one male in with the females... after monitoring them for a while I separated the males again into pairs of 2 by adding mesh to the center so they all have their "own space" - there is still some bickering between them but it the situation has calmed down a lot.
Should I swap out the males so they each get time with the females or would that create issues ?

The bird in the cage there - is no longer in that cage he was being mean to the others before doing the sectioned separation. I want to add some more plants and maybe some long grasses and some hides for them in the coming month.

Happy to take any advice on it.

This is what it looked like before the changes.

I am also pleased to introduce my new babies that I didn't think would hatch - they are from the OG quail eggs collected over a couple days. They hatched out on the 26th of December. I am so excited about them they're so cute omg !!! I put in 12 eggs two were unfertilized and all the remaining 10 eggs hatched .
Two of them look different from the others so I'm real intrigued to see what colours they turn out to be..

We don't have any poultry game feed here so I ground up millet, chick feed and ... cat food for the protein... not sure how good these are for them so I have broiler starter feed coming in - it got a bit delayed with festive season.

Also keen to get some advice on the feed - there is not much info for us South African quail keepers but I did see a video with a guy and his wife saying they they crush up cat food for the baby quail to about 6 weeks with no issues...

Welcoming all advice.
Thank you in advance