Female attacks male

[Anika P]

My quails were in full egg production, with the 1 male domination all 8 females. And then all of the sudden (4 days ago) the egg laying dropped from about 6-8 eggs a day to 1 a day, and the male is getting brutally attacked by one particular female. Not sure what can be causing this... so many factors to consider...

So let me give you some description of their environment:

- They have a large 2' L x 2' H coop and a 6' L x 2' W x 2 H run.
- Plenty of sunlight, and good amount of shade.
- I feed them layer's feed, grain mix, veggie scraps and provide them oyster shells.
- Normally I take away the eggs at the end of the day and leave 2 (so they don't get too distressed by the loss)
- I started treating them with dry worms about a week ago... no to much, just about 1 hand-full a day.
- Its been a very rainy week, and there are constant storms on the horizon (i live in Florida)
- This week there was a wild bird that came looking for food (cause i had the bag of grain outside)... i didn't personally witness it but left feathers all over the place.

Anyone has thoughts on this?

 

[eHuman]

When you say layers feed do you mean chicken or game bird? If the protein content of your feed is not at least 24% it can cause both health and attitude problems.

It is also possible that an over bred favorite had enough and attacked him and mob mentality took over, especially if blood was drawn.