Female quail turned into a bully after reintroduction - help!

[PineconeQuail]

Hi! I'm brand new here but have used other people's questions as resources for my quail and chickens for a while. I just can't find any answers to my particular problem, so I thought I would register and turn to you all for help.

First off, I have three cotturnix quail hens in a decently large cage. I have had them for a few months now and haven't had any issues with aggression - until today.

Yesterday I thought one of them was injured so I separated her and put her in a cage inside to keep an eye on her for 24 hours, and make sure her next egg lay was fine. It was - hooray! This evening when I went to put her back in with her sisters (they all came from the same batch of eggs) she attacked them both! I'd never seen any of them do any behavior like this. She chased after them, pecked, and made strange unhappy/growly noises. Every time there is enough light for her to see by, be it flashlight or landscape lights, she will launch herself at one of the other birds.

I opened up the coop door into the run so the bullied ones have somewhere to flee to come morning (usually I keep the coop part closed up tight to prevent predators from getting any bright ideas). I know introducing new birds to established flocks can be tricky, but this is her flock - she was only gone 24 hours!

Anyone know what I can do about this? Is this just pecking orders being reestablished and they'll go back to being cute little peeping fluffs soon? Help!

Thanks.

Edit:

I used FloorCandy's suggestion with a mix of muddy75's remove everyone, and NY Coturnix's idea of adding a feeder and waterer and it worked! I removed everyone into separate cages, cleaned EVERYTHING, refreshed the space so it looked new, and once I put them all back in at the same time after a few hours of being separated I sat and sniped at them with a water sprayer. Took about an hour of being soaked but the aggressive one calmed down, and and any little flare-ups that started between the others were stopped. Fingers crossed this remains in their little peabrains and they go back to loving eachother. THANKS SO MUCH for the advice everyone!

 

[muddy75]

aggression can happen whenever surroundings change. if you need to remove, replace, reintroduce a bird......the best way is to remove everyone and reintroduce all of them. if aggressive behaviors continue after that, then you may want to consider removing the aggressor from that group permanently. you can find more information blog/video on this topic from myshirefarm

 

[NY Coturnix]

I have had this same thing happen and it always seems like it's a hen. Myshire just put out a good video on several reasons for aggression on their YouTube channel. Not sure of you complete set up but one thing he recommended was if you're seeing this around your feeder or water try adding a 2nd one on the other side of the pen or if you have the typical round one try one of the longer ones where they can all eat without being next to each other.

Good luck

 

[FloorCandy]

When I’m mixing quail, I will mist all of the birds with vinegar/water and I’ll mist the whole pen. After that, I change the sprayer nozzle to the spray setting, and I snipe anyone I see aggressing. After a few shots, they usually give up. After that I go out every couple hours to offer a vinegar scented refresher course in behavior do’s and don’ts. Usually they settle down pretty quickly. On rare occasions I get one that just won’t get along, and they get invited to dinner.

 

[PineconeQuail]

When I’m mixing quail, I will mist all of the birds with vinegar/water and I’ll mist the whole pen. After that, I change the sprayer nozzle to the spray setting, and I snipe anyone I see aggressing. After a few shots, they usually give up. After that I go out every couple hours to offer a vinegar scented refresher course in behavior do’s and don’ts. Usually they settle down pretty quickly. On rare occasions I get one that just won’t get along, and they get invited to dinner.

I think I will try that! I can grab my cat carriers and put one in each to spray down the coop, and hopefully that will give them some time to calm down, too. Luckily its just one being mean - but it took me by complete surprise because she isn't a new bird, just was away for a day. Thank!

 

[PineconeQuail]

I have had this same thing happen and it always seems like it's a hen. Myshire just put out a good video on several reasons for aggression on their YouTube channel. Not sure of you complete set up but one thing he recommended was if you're seeing this around your feeder or water try adding a 2nd one on the other side of the pen or if you have the typical round one try one of the longer ones where they can all eat without being next to each other.

Good luck

Thanks for the idea! I attached a picture of my coop. The original set up had their food and water in the top part, but per your suggestion I added a dish with feed and an extra water source underneith - so hopefully everyone can at least stay fed and hydrated while I sort this out. I did notice that she seems to get more aggressive when the others are in view of the original food set up.

 

[PineconeQuail]

aggression can happen whenever surroundings change. if you need to remove, replace, reintroduce a bird......the best way is to remove everyone and reintroduce all of them. if aggressive behaviors continue after that, then you may want to consider removing the aggressor from that group permanently. you can find more information blog/video on this topic from myshirefarm

Do you have a suggestion of how long I should keep them separated before reintroducing them? This issue happened after only 24 hours of being separated from the others - I'd hate to have all of them get aggressive upon reintroducing.

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

Do you have a suggestion of how long I should keep them separated before reintroducing them? This issue happened after only 24 hours of being separated from the others - I'd hate to have all of them get aggressive upon reintroducing.

This sounds terrible, but I make sure the quail all get cramped up and unhappy together so when they get put back in a nicer surrounding, they're all happy again. Just like us, happiness is relative.

 

[kurby22]

This sounds terrible, but I make sure the quail all get cramped up and unhappy together so when they get put back in a nicer surrounding, they're all happy again. Just like us, happiness is relative.

I have done this too! I put all the quail together in the cat carrier and clean their pen and then release them into the cage as a group again and they seem to chill out on each other cuz they’re all freaked out together haha. Then they rejoice in new dust baths and everyone is happy again

 

[PineconeQuail]

Update!

I wanted to update this with my results and steps in case someone else comes across the same problem.

It took about 5ish days for my girls to get along again.

I took a mix of suggestions in this thread and combined them into something that worked for me. The day after I discovered the one who was kept separate for possible medical reasons, I separated all three birds out into different cages (2 cat carriers, and the medical cage) for several hours. I made it so they couldn't see each other, but could still hear each other.

While they were inside on timeout I went outside and completely cleaned the main coop and run. I did a 1:1 mix of water and vinegar in a spray bottle, scrubbed, wiped, brushed, and sprayed down every inch of the coop, mixed up the dirt, added sawdust and hay, added new enrichment items in the run (terracotta pot, long twisty oak branch, some rocks) anything that made the space look completely different and gave them some ability to do things without constantly seeing each other (pot/branch broke line of sight to reduce instinct to attack/defend).

I then brought the quail back out into the yard in their cages, sprayed them down with the vinegar solution, and with some help put all three in the run at the exact same time. They all frantically ran around for a minute, then, like I suspected would happen, my bully resumed being a bully.

This is when I took the suggestion to snipe the aggressive one with the vinegar solution and I just sat outside for about an hour spraying at any sign of being mean from ANY of the birds. Turns out I had TWO that were being mean. However, after the first hour the original bully was no longer actively hunting down her coop mates and chasing after them. It was only when they got right up in her face! Progress!

For the next several days I (nervously) allowed them to sleep out in the run or in the coop, and spent two or more hours (not consecutive) outside with my spray bottle. After the first night I used only water because I didn't want to risk harming their eyes. Slowly the aggression in both died down to a begrudging tolerance.

Throughout this time I slowly (I'm talking a foot or less a day) limited the size of their run so they HAD to spend time near eachother. Once it became obvious they were only attacking if one got right up in another's face (and even then it was mostly posturing and feather pecking) I felt it safe to limit their space.

Eventually the second quail and the one who was never mean spent the night in the coop together - after that they were completely friendly and cuddly with each other again.

It took about 4 nights for the main bully to allow the others into the coop with her at night - and then like magic, that next day they were ALL friendly.

I haven't had a problem since then; all three are friendly, laying eggs in the same spot (the farthest corner of their run just to spite me), sleeping in the coop together, and dustbathing like they were before this nasty incident!

So a big THANK YOU to everyone who offered their advice and answered my pleas for help!