Coturnix quail bullies...

[quail1999]

After the sudden death of four of my quail i am left with 6... 4 females, 2 males. It's amazing that the males still try to kill eachother with nearly 20 sqaure feet each! One of my males picked out the eye of one of the others. Don't worry, i seperated them.

At least the females are happy- they started laying 3-4 eggs a day! I think if i ever get quail again i will never get males! They are evil little guys!

Do you think i have to kill one of my males so they can live in peace?

I really don't want to because even though they are mean to eachother they are so sweet!

 

[MrNappy]

Oh man, i feel your pain, i had almost the exact same thing happen. I bought 10, 2 male, 8 female.

I kept isolating ad bringing back, one of my females died in the process. My males weren't mean to the girls, they were mean to each other. (Actually, my gold beat up the runt and forced her to mate, she didn't want to but he chased her and forced her), then my male brown ripped a chunk off the gold's neck, then i isolated it healed and brought em back. He ripped an even bigger chunk off the other side and so i had to cull em.

So now i have 1 male for 7 females, and they together pretty nicely. Funny thing is, when my females are eating the male sees her going down and thinks she wants to mate, so he hops on her, LOL.

 

[Kylesquails]

Yer quail are very tricky to mix, i had 10 that grew up together,i separated them for about a month for breeding. when i put the hens back they were worst enemy's i now have 2 separate pens with 1 roo 5 hens in each and they all get along famously.

 

[quail1999]

I guess have very complicated little minds! Haha

 

[quailtrail]

I had a similar problem. I hatched a male and female. Corturnix. I picked up 4 A&Ms. I ended up 2 for 2...but they all got along for 3 weeks once intrintroduced. Then the 2 younger males kept attacking my skittish male corturnix who was 5 weeks older. So we separated the 2 a&m aggressive males. So everything was fine for almost 2 weeks when my quiet shy sweet sheldon scalped attacked and fatally injured one of the gals. But I didn't know it was him. I thought it was the a&ms fighting. Well sadly my hubby found the other scalped with its eye pecked out. I truly believe he did not want anyone near his corturnix. Heartbreaking! !!

 

[dixietrish]

We have courtyard hens; our neighbour has a male quail who in the past few months has lost his hen. At first I felt sorry for him but now he keeps coming in to our yard, frightening all the hens bar one who stands up to him. At first i thought she would be dealing with hm but the past 2 days he has been around again and I caught him hanging from her lower red flap (sorry,can't think of proper name). I have chased him off, but she is now very timid, reluctant to come out of coop, but she eventually did of her own accord. Is this normal? The quail lives alone and roams completely free - we live in France and it is very difficult tosay anything as the attitude is one of - thats nature, but I am getting concerned that my chickens are getting stressed. Any suggestions?

 

[Weirdness555]

Hurrah for ground rearing!! With regards to the males and culling problem, if you like the males you have left why not get more females? Like twocrows says, sometimes you get a crazy one with a screw loose, and as said before, if people breed aggressive birds then they offspring will get slowly more aggressive through the generations. If you can find another breeder, you might be able to get a more reliable sale. I find hobby breeders are the best, our breeder loves his birds and spends all his spare time out in the bird shed! Much to the displeasure of his poor wife XD We have 1 male and 5 females in the bottom of our aviary, not sure exactly how much space per bird, but it's well over a foot, probably about 4 square feet per bird, and they are all lovely to each other. You'll have to be careful introducing new females though, and it's worth spending a bit more for birds who are already laying if you can, as they are less likely to get harassed by an overly affectionate male when they don't want to mate.

Our male is lovely and gentle on the ladies, although I only ever see him successfully mate with one hen (he has a missing toe and the others aren't patient while he gets his balance tehe)

 

[QuailNewbee]

Once they get "bully" I guess it's impossible to introduce them back?

I had one hen get screwy and actively go after everyone, including the roos. Then my roos started fighting. I had 6 hens and 2 roos together. Now I have the crazy hen and 1 roo together separate in a dog crate minus the bottom pan, until I can build another coop. Peace is restored for now in both pens.

Val

 

[hopkinshens]

I had 6 females and one male a few weeks ago I found a hen in the morning with horrendous injuries to her face and head she didn't survive :-(
Everything was quiet until this morning when I found one of my hens has literally had her neck ripped open, I have separated her but I don't think she's gonna make it the wound is the whole of the front of her neck and the skin is hanging off in place and the skin is ripped open. She's not bleeding as such but it's pretty bad. Any thoughts on why this could be happening?
I know I need hidy spaces now after reading up, but is this the others hens or the boy?

 

[Weirdness555]

It could be either, you get crazy hens and roos on occasion. How long have they been together? Find some time to sit and watch them and identify the mean one, take him/her out. I would cull a bird like that if I were you.

Adding hiding places will help, but with that sort of aggression I would remove the offending bird for sure.

Don't give up hope, I'm told that quail can survive very horrific looking injuries. Keep her separate until she looks normal again and don't put her back unless you've found and removed the nasty one.