Anyone keep larger number of quail together, how many males?

[HillGuy]

Most of what I read & see has ratios of 1 male to 4 or 5 females as a group in one cage, pen, hutch, ect. What about if you are keeping 1 or 2 dozen together in a large pen?

 

[NY Coturnix]

from what i've read as long as you have the male to female ratio correct and give at least 1 sq foot per bird your good. I have my pens separated 3x3 foot and the most I have is one pen with 7. 5 female and 2 male with no issues. I'm sure I could add more but when you get a group that gets a long I don't like to rock the boat.

 

[Dinoroar]

I have about 2 dozen in a large pen but not sure I’ll be super helpful with your question as I’m not exactly sure how many males there are at this point. I would guess about 6 males judging on how many eggs I gather. I guess that comes out to about one make per 4 females. I don’t have any fighting & fertility seems fine.

 

[Nabiki]

The more space you have, the better the chance of them getting along. Lots of hiding places also helps. Other than that, it depends on the personalities of the birds involved.

 

[Kiki]

Most of what I read & see has ratios of 1 male to 4 or 5 females as a group in one cage, pen, hutch, ect. What about if you are keeping 1 or 2 dozen together in a large pen?

How large of a pen?

 

[HillGuy]

It's a 6' x 8' x 7' tall aviary. Inside there are 2 "small cat homes" 16.5" x 15.75" x 20" that they can walk under and a homemade 2' x 4' x 8" high "deck", so the birds go both under & on top of it. I have some potted plants on top of it also.

All 3 areas have some straw in them, and that's where I usually find the eggs. Though they stopped laying about 10 days ago. Had 11 birds, was getting 6 eggs/day, but that stopped. At that time I think it was 2 males and 9 females, but it could have been 3 males and 8 females.

As of Wednesday, I put in a bunch more (15 I think) of 7 week old birds from a 4' X 4' home made from pallets raised "hutch" that I was using as a transition home between the brooder & the aviary. I moved them because a rat managed to kill one through the hardware cloth, and I figured better to split them up than to have all at risk.

In any event, this weekend's project is to get the correct number of birds and the best male to female ratio in the aviary.

Worse yet, I got carried away with different colors and some celadon eggs, and I'm having a difficult time identifying males vs females on the non-standard coturnix. Like a dope, I created extra work for myself.

 

[KatsPlace]

I’ve read that As long as they don’t fight.
I have the same issue 12 total in 8’x10’ (walk in height) I can only feather sex 2. Mine just turned 7 weeks so we’ll see son enough.

 

[Quailobsessed]

If they have enough space, it should be okay. It still depends on individual birds though.

 

[Rooapalooza]

It's a 6' x 8' x 7' tall aviary. Inside there are 2 "small cat homes" 16.5" x 15.75" x 20" that they can walk under and a homemade 2' x 4' x 8" high "deck", so the birds go both under & on top of it. I have some potted plants on top of it also.

All 3 areas have some straw in them, and that's where I usually find the eggs. Though they stopped laying about 10 days ago. Had 11 birds, was getting 6 eggs/day, but that stopped. At that time I think it was 2 males and 9 females, but it could have been 3 males and 8 females.

As of Wednesday, I put in a bunch more (15 I think) of 7 week old birds from a 4' X 4' home made from pallets raised "hutch" that I was using as a transition home between the brooder & the aviary. I moved them because a rat managed to kill one through the hardware cloth, and I figured better to split them up than to have all at risk.

In any event, this weekend's project is to get the correct number of birds and the best male to female ratio in the aviary.

Worse yet, I got carried away with different colors and some celadon eggs, and I'm having a difficult time identifying males vs females on the non-standard coturnix. Like a dope, I created extra work for myself.

That sounds like a cool set-up, do you have any pictures?
I have a 3 ft tall cage that's 4 ft x 7.5 ft. I had a bunch of males in my old group of 12 Texas A&M quail. I thought I had 3 boys and 9 girls, turns out I had something like 7 boys, and it was not good. I ended up culling all the boys but two, but they were still aggressive and I had to kill one. (The testicles in that bird were ENORMOUS, which explains the aggressiveness, I guess). Anyway I ended up with three girls and the last boy, and the girls still got a bit over-mated.
I now only raise quail who's gender I can identify by color, and since I always have less than a dozen, I try to keep it down to 2 males.
Basically I think like everyone else said. You want at least 3 girls per boy but it depends on the personalities of the boys. Of course the more space the better.

 

[HillGuy]

Here's some pics. It's an ongoing project.