Bullying -why are my a&m picked on by the various other coturnix colors?

[Rylie Jo Samialli]

I started out with 10 quail three of which were a&m. The others were all a variety of other coturnix colors. It was quickly apparent that the a&m needed to be separated because they all were getting pecked. Two Roos and one hen had their heads scalped and eyes gouged. They all healed in a separate pen keeping the Roos separate from each other and the hen with the more docile roo. For about two months the two a&m have done great and I have several chicks from them. Two days ago I went out to their cage and the poor hen was bald and half her back was featherless. I ended up putting the roo back in with his previous arch enemies with more hiding places which he takes advantage of and have observed some bullying toward him again, but not too serious yet.

Is it ok to keep a one to one ratio (hen and roo) together typically or do the Roos need more hens to keep this from happening again?

Why do my other colored quail seem to have it in for the white ones?

Unrelated but curious...anyone know why my white a&m all have a dot of black on the top of their head? Of the 8 chicks, all but two have the same black dot already on their head when they were hatched.

 

[Erkenstein]

A&M have a reputation for being more aggressive than others. As to receiving aggression, once they are injured I imagine it shows up a lot more and triggers more attacks.

You really want several hens for each male, and even then the roos tend to put a lot of pressure on their "favorite."

 

[Erkenstein]

Also regarding the original aggression against the A&Ms: was it a single bully? was it a male or a female? It sounds like they mellowed out once you removed the victims, but sometimes there's just a bad seed in the group who can be aggressive and won't get out of it; that's when they make my cull list.

 

[le_bwah]

You shouldn't keep Coturnix at a 1:1 ratio, the males would almost certainly overmate the females. 1 roo to 3 hens is about as low as your should go.

I've heard that quail can be "racist" toward colors they weren't raised with. That could be going on here. I know it took my "mixed egg" bunch a week or two to get used to their new Golden flock-mates.

Yes, most A&Ms have a black/brown dot. It's a feature of that particular color mutation.

 

[JaeG]

I have kept a pair together before but only because it suited them. A lot depends on their personalities. I recently discovered I'd had a white female in with two males (I started to find the odd egg when I cleaned them out so I'd sexed her wrong when sorting). All three birds had been living together without incident, and not a missing feather between them, but the lack of lots of eggs tells me the female wasn't happy.

Yes, quail can be very racist. It's important to get their social dynamics right so that you have a peaceful group because, as you've found, they can be downright nasty if they aren't happy. Getting the dynamics right is probably the hardest part of keeping quail. Select for the traits you want to continue so overly aggressive birds shouldn't be bred from. I have very docile quail because that's what's important to me.