Button quail! HELP!!!

[ButtonquailGirl14]

my Button quail hen is on day 10 of setting, she has tried really hard 7 other times but my male does not breed her very often so they are usally not fertile, this time i know they are and i am so EXITED! she is sweet but the only other (slightly insanely bad mother) broody hen tried to kill all her chicks. there still is a slight chance that she would be aggressive towards them, if she is What do i do???? is there a way to stop this??? also, my male doesn't have any breeding drive, she will go in front of him and plop down and chirp, but he will not mount her. we knew they where a pair at first because we saw them breed. he is so sweet, he cleans her every night, he brings her food when she is setting (sometimes even when she isn't) he even sits on the nest! he guards the door to their house, she is the only hen, i just don't get it!!!! he obiously loves her, he just doesn't have any drive to breed her, is there a way to fix this??? also is there a safe way to mark the chicks??? i want to mark them in some way but every way i hear is unsafe for them. what else is weired is all the other males that are paired breed the females excessively, they are all bald! also my female is definitely higher in the pecking order than him, she is bossy LOL! sorry for all the questions!

 

[DK newbie]

Could you please try to avoid making multiple posts on the same topic? It's kind of annoying to open each of the posts and realize its about the same. And when some people answer in one thread and others in another, we might end up all wasting our time saying the same thing in different ways rather than just 'I agree with the above' and someone might tell you one thing that someone else disagrees with and you might never know because they never saw the 'wrong' post so they could tell you they disagreed..

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

i am so sorry, i thought they disappear if nobody answers them.

 

[DK newbie]

Your 3 posts are the only ones in the quail forum for the last 12 hours or so - they are all right at the top..
If it is very urgent (as in the chicks hatched already and the mother is pecking them) then you can always post in the same thread to bump the post, but the quail forum really doesn't get that many posts - if you don't get an answer, it's more likely because no one knows than it's because the post disappeared.

 

[lena_]

my Button quail hen is on day 10 of setting, she has tried really hard 7 other times but my male does not breed her very often so they are usually not fertile, this time i know they are and i am so EXCITED! she is sweet but the only other (slightly insanely bad mother) broody hen tried to kill all her chicks. there still is a slight chance that she would be aggressive towards them, if she is What do i do???? is there a way to stop this???

Also, my male doesn't have any breeding drive, she will go in front of him and plop down and chirp, but he will not mount her. we knew they where a pair at first because we saw them breed. he is so sweet, he cleans her every night, he brings her food when she is setting (sometimes even when she isn't) he even sits on the nest! he guards the door to their house, she is the only hen, i just don't get it!!!! He obviously loves her, he just doesn't have any drive to breed her, is there a way to fix this??? also is there a safe way to mark the chicks??? i want to mark them in some way but every way i hear is unsafe for them. what else is weired is all the other males that are paired breed the females excessively, they are all bald! also my female is definitely higher in the pecking order than him, she is bossy LOL! sorry for all the questions!

Have you candled the eggs? How exciting! If the she is aggressive, just raise the chicks yourself, there is no point letting an aggressive parent kill the chicks. When the babies hatch and mother quail has left the nest, keep a careful watch on dad (While he may be an excellent husband, he may not be a great dad)
To identify which chick is which, I just put a small dot of coloured sharpie on the chicks backs soon after drying off, it doesn't seem to have any negative effects on the babies.
How much sunlight are they getting? That could contribute towards how much the male mates her.

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

ok, you cannot candle button eggs, they are too dark... Thanks!!! they get a lot of light because we are in the room a lot and have the lightes on

 

[DK newbie]

You can candle button eggs. You just can't expect to see veins, a beating heart and such as you can with some species. If the light shines through the entire egg (from day 6 or so), there is no development. If the egg is dark, most likely there is a chick inside. If in doubt, don't toss the egg.