Fighting quail

[Ellis91]

I need some advice on our quail. We've sexed them and put the right ratio of males to females in the cage. I went to check them today and 2 are beat up pretty bad. One the scalp is missing, but I know it will be fine, the other one I'm not sure about. The back of its head, neck, going down its back it's missing. I don't know what we're doing wrong. Any advice will be nice or I'll make room in my freezer for them. It's starting to be an every week thing, I'm finding one pretty beat up, and I'm tired of it.

 

[Eonflux]

How many females to male and how big is the cage? I would take the male out if he’s the one beating up the females for now and let them heal.

 

[Nabiki]

Also, are the males getting beaten up or the girls? If you have more than one male in the cage, they are likely to fight.

 

[Ellis91]

How many females to male and how big is the cage? I would take the male out if he’s the one beating up the females for now and let them heal.

I have the 2 that are really beat up in the "hospital" with food and water. I just checked out the others in the bigger cage and it looks like 2 have neck wounds. I believe we have 2 males for 10 females.

 

[Ellis91]

Also, are the males getting beaten up or the girls? If you have more than one male in the cage, they are likely to fight.

We have 2 males in there with 10 females, i believe. I think it's females that are getting really beat up by the males. It's not a circle of life beat up, it's like a "hey I'm in the mood to fight, so I'm gonna fight you " type of thing.

 

[JaeG]

Some individuals just don't like each other and the males may be aggravated by each others presence and taking it out on the hens. Also, males mature faster than hens so if the hens aren't laying yet but the cocks are ready to breed that's another situation where the hens can be injured by the cock birds.

 

[Ellis91]

Some individuals just don't like each other and the males may be aggravated by each others presence and taking it out on the hens. Also, males mature faster than hens so if the hens aren't laying yet but the cocks are ready to breed that's another situation where the hens can be injured by the cock birds.

Geeze, I didn't know that! Maybe I need to separate everyone into 2 cages. I'm glad us humans aren't like that, my husband would be in trouble lol

 

[Fenrisulfr]

I want to state, that there is also the possibility of aggressive hens.

I had a group recently, where two hens tag-teamed the whole group, incl. the roos.

 

[Quailobsessed]

Some males go okay together. I used to have a group of three males (with no females), who got along fine together. They would attack any other boys (and girls) that I tried to put with them. Sadly, one of them died, but the other two still get along well.

I currently have three males and five females together, but they're in a large coop with my pheasants, where they can get out of each other's way.

There are exceptions like this, but most males will fight if you put them together. Perhaps try separating the males and giving them their favourite females.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

How big is the cage you have them in? For simplicity I'd probably separate the boys with their own little flocks of ladies