Different ages together?

[GBov]

Am building a bigger flight cage so dont want to eat all my growers as would be great to have some more hens. My problem is that the hens have grown out MUCH better than the roos have. I guess its because they spend all their time chasing each other so arnt getting nice and fat like the girls are

Now, can I put my younger growers (about 5 weeks old) in with my second lot of growers (about 8 weeks old) if its JUST hens they go in with?

I use to put young chickens in with my flock just fine if I made sure to put in enough of them at one time that the older hens couldnt target just one or two. They would chase them round quite a bit but no real damage was done. Will it work like that for Coturnix quail or will there be bloody murder done?

If I can put them together then I can put my roos into my first stage pen and hopefully with less room to run round they might fatten up a bit.

Or do roos just mature slower than hens?

I know that my breeders are MUCH heftier than my first lot of growers. They are about 8 to 10 weeks older than the growers so have had time to mature but I was told that coturnix were fully mature at 8 weeks of age.

Is that just sexual maturity and they put on more heft as they age or are my lot just a bit odd and slow?

I LOVE learning new things about my quail

but at the end of the day what I want most to know is how to make the most of our first quail supper

 

[GBov]

I suppose I should have called this thread "HOW TO FATTEN COTURNIX ROO'S FOR DINNER!"

 

[JJMR794]

Best Advice---- Do Not Mix Ages Until All Are Full Grown.

 

[GBov]

Quote:
Now, is that the 8 week mature full grown or something else? I know it sounds silly but fully grown can mean so many things lol.

 

[Trailerparkfarmer]

I have not had any problems at all mixing ages. i just make sure they are roughly the same size and if possible put more young ones than old ones in the cage so the young ones dont get ganged up on. The only problem with fighting I have ever had has been with males of the same generation. And its usually one male causing all the trouble. I can just remove him and it stops.

all my females are significantly larger than the males.

 

[Stellar]

If you put different age of quail together, the older ones can kill the younger ones.

It is best to house them when they are at least 8 weeks of age or older. Now if you have 8 week olds, 9 week olds, and 10 week olds, it is fine to house them together.