Celadon not laying

PajamaMama21

Hatching
Sep 16, 2021
5
3
9
So I have three celadon females and three males. They are about 10/11 weeks old. Only one female is laying! Brownie is super like... Super-Broody-Fat-and-Cutie. She just LOOKS like a mama. She's the only one laying. She's with another male and female. (The male, Fudge, is SUPER sweet but only seems to breed Brownie. Trust me, they are a happy little lot, just the three of them! It's like Ricky and Lucy and Ethel just like... part of the gang.) The other female is a Skinny Mini and definitely not laying!! (It's like having 6 kids of your own then having your single, skinny friend come over with her makeup and stilletos. Seriously.)

Now my other three are in an aquarium, My third female is a bit of a bully and is in her own half of an aquarium, with two males sharing the apartment, but no access to her. Thunder (yeah, that's her name. The four-year-old named her!) isn't laying either. She tends to pick on the other females so I put her in confinement. She was in with the two males but they started mating her too much and pulling out her feathers. (Don't feel too bad for Thunder. She's like the size of Thor compared to all the other quail.) So Thunder isn't laying either. I have them all on a high-quality quail laying feed. And they get plenty of sun. I've heard celadons mature later than other quail but like... good old Brownie has been laying for over a week now... and nothing from the other ladies.

Thoughts? We do like... quail enrichment with treats and tunnels and other ridiculous stuff. We make quail furniture of cardboard over here. We made a quail castle.
 
Sounds like stress to me.
1 - You have way too many boys. For coturnix quail, you should have one male to three to five females.
2 - They probably don't have enough space. The usual rule is a minimum of 1 square foot per bird. Even a 55 gallon aquarium isn't going to give enough space for 6.
3 - If you're in the northern hemisphere, it's possible that they're not getting enough light. 14-16 hours of light per day is best to keep them laying.
 
Get rid of two roos, put the rest of them together and see what happens. They'll be happier and you'll be happier too.

Rookie mistake on my part was keeping too many males for too long.
 

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