Aggressive males

[chickenenthusiasts5698]

I started with 10 quail (8 hens 2 roosters) in January everything was fine they were laying lots of eggs and were very peaceful. I hatched 3 chicks out it ended up being 1 male 2 hens I kept the trio separate from the main flock of quail and everything was fine. In about april one of my quail hens in my main flock ended up injured on her crop area is was pretty bloody but didnt seem very serious so I brought her inside and kept it clean but she ended up passing away I thought this was an injury from the males but in my facebook quail group everyone said it was likely rats chewing on them I didnt feel like this was the reason but I trusted them since im new to quail and dont have any experience with them. I got in touch with a local quail breeder in my are and traded some chickens for 6 quail hens to add to my flock this brought my total count of quail hens to 15 I felt this was a good number of hens to go ahead and move my trio into the main flock (everything went well) the 6 quail hens were about 4 weeks old so a little bit young but nobody was picking on each other so I left them. In may 2 of my hens ended up getting scalped and they recovered fine (im 100% sure this was caused by the males) once they healed I added them back into the flock and shortly after that one of my hens passed away. Ive since separated all my roosters into a rooster flock and havent had anymore injurys to my hens since so im sure all the injuries were caused by my roosters. My question is I now have about 20ish quail hens should I add one of the roosters back or cull them and add a new rooster in?? I dont want anymore aggressive males

I feel like they had plenty of hens and space but theyre still so rough and dangerous.

 

[Nabiki]

I would add one rooster at a time until you know which one(s) are aggressive. I would cull the aggressive ones.

If you don't want to breed them and just want eggs, I'd cull all of the roosters. They only need a rooster if you want fertile eggs.

 

[Chickenhappy8708]

Well mabey add your most docile male back in, he may be less inclined to do damage if all goes well, keep the males rolling back in. Mabey figure out who is doing all the damage, and full him.

 

[JaeG]

It's best to have just one male per pen unless you have them in a very large, aviary-type setup. I've been able to have a 1:1 ratio in my large aviary, but that's also because I've only kept docile roosters over time and bred for personality over anything else. Some males are nasty and scalping injuries are from males aggressively mating the hens (or each other).

Because some of your hens are used to having a male about they may call for a mate (and they can get really loud). But if that doesn't worry you, they will be fine as an all girls group if that's how you are happy to keep them.

 

[MLG1900]

Quail can be very aggressive when there are eggs present or nesting. I have had both males and females attacked and killed when a nest of eggs was present.

 

[chickenenthusiasts5698]

I would add one rooster at a time until you know which one(s) are aggressive. I would cull the aggressive ones.

If you don't want to breed them and just want eggs, I'd cull all of the roosters. They only need a rooster if you want fertile eggs.

It’s one (if not both) of the roosters from my main flock.