Coturnix - How the heck do you introduce new birds to each other?

[Fudgie]

OK I have had good luck raising quail, the issue here is HOW the heck do I introduce these birds without them pecking each other to death. I have several pens that I want to combine into one community pen. Every time I try to introduce them, whether at night or whenever, I come back in about 30 min and someone is bloody!

There has got to be a simple way to do this without losses galore! Any ideas please?

 

[Emilys3guppies]

I don't have a community pen, and understand that those are trickier than keeping breeding quads seperately. I have had great success with introducing young adults to new breeding quads under a few rules:
*all birds are introduced to a pen that is new to every bird so nobody has territorial issues
*it's done at night so that they are confused in the pitch dark, lol.

 

[babymakes6]

I keep all of mine in one LARGE pen. I only keep one male, and I currently have 9 females. Fertility is excellent, by the way. I have never tried introducing adult birds to each other, but when chicks are 3-4 weeks old, I add them and I have never had a problem with pecking.

 

[Fudgie]

I will try the community pen where EVERYONE is new going in and going in at DARK!!! and see how that works.

 

[Byrdj]

Quote:
Let us know how that goes!

 

[kcravey]

Ya let us know!

 

[shelleyd2008]

Everyone in a new pen to everyone is the easiest way I've found. Though I've been pretty lucky with mine. Normally any that get bloodied are ones that have been together for months, and have just decided they didn't like each other

Obviously, equal sizes/colors is another tip, if you put one white bird in a group of nothing but browns, they are going to notice

Likewise, if you have a pen of jumbos, and add a pharoah sized bird, they'll notice that too.

 

[Fudgie]

I had two of the darker brown colored ones in a pen and had 2 lighter browns that I wanted to add....SOO anyway, will try the ALL new pen

 

[Ironsun]

Hi,

I often move birds from one pen to another for breeding purposes and to date nothing has happened to any bird.

My method is, use the wire cage from an old bird cage. Simply place the new bird in the cage in which pen you want,with food and water. Move the cage around once or twice per day to another bit. After a few days of this, all birds know each other and the cage can be moved out leaving the "new bird" there.

It's a simple idea and works very well.

Ironsun.

 

[AHappychick]

Quote:
oh I m gonna have to try that because I have a very hard time moving them around also with out having them fight. I dont know why but quail are so nasty to newbies