Help! Aggressive male quail!

[Dragons4u]

Papas, we cook like that at rendezvous still. Whatever we can hunt up meat wise (legal hunting season) and whatever edible plants can be scrounged.

 

[Papas Chickens]

Thats what I do with all my game I hunt esoecially elk and deer.

 

[farmerjane65]

my quail was only aggressive to other quail ... he is however a texas a &m .. which the more i read the more i find that i should just cull him as soon as possible .. one he does tend to be aggressive to his cage mates hens ... he has the spots on his back .. one post i read says that means the blood line is getting thin, for lack of better terms , but so far the quail jail is working when he gets grumpy lol..

 

[chino]

fry him up. buttermilk flour and peperika

 

[RichardandTresa]

Hello all,

I'd consider myself a "newbie" except that I've been studying about quail for MONTHS before we even got started...

Our first batch of Jumbo Brown Coturnix are now 7 weeks, 3 days old. 24 total with 9 hens. In the picture of our still to be completed pen/battery, the breeder cages are on the left, grow out on the right. (1 male to 4 females). We began getting eggs a week ago and are way over 2 dozen. The males chosen for breeding are aggressive enough to do the job, but all the hens are happy and calm.

The males in the grow out cages have begun to go nuts (crowing significantly and now fighting... They all have self designed and built feeders and waterers. I read about line of sight of hens getting the roos crazy so since the photos, I installed an opaque plastic divider that comes into contact with the water trough enough to visually hide them... Things calmed down a lot! (By the way, floor space is no less than .78 square foot per bird with an average of 1 sq foot)

I built some slant walled sand boxes thinking this would keep them busy and it helped a lot. We begun hanging greens from the garden and that helped a lot... The fighting has increased... from male to male mating instincts to just outright pecking to the point of blood. I've set up 8 individual "Quail-Jail" cages which has helped, but I'm still left wondering what else I could do...

I read here about the potential for inbreeding increasing aggression. Since a friend sold us our chicks, I (we) have no idea how far down the line these chicks are (future purchases will keep this in mind and I plan to get aggressive about breeding for size and eggs keeping in-breeding at the top of my list by record keeping...

I did try the Quail-trifuge (felt guilty for laughing as I was trying to stop the pecking and crowing... It worked! (for a while anyway)... a few times on the carousel ride helped even more...

At this point, I'm considering building a permanent, wall mounted quail-jail set up (isolated cages on a wall with auto feed and water, slide out vacuum formed pans and wire... Think corporate mail sorting bins...) for growing out the last 2 to 3 weeks.

I'd like to grow them out further but really concerned with future fighting issues. We're planning on building a second battery like the photos and adding 4 additional grow out cages...

I'd love to know if anyone has experimented with any other solutions... Does light affect them? (decreasing light as they seem to be much calmer at night (I plan on lighting the breeder cages individually with small halogen, under shelf lights.)

Thanks!

Richard

 

[luvburds]

im sorry i didnt clarify that i turn the wire basket upside down over him inside his own cage .... he is still with them but cant get to them ... if your cage is large enough for that my basket was only about 9 inches tall and maybe a foot sqare ... kinda like the old gym baskets i had in high school .... graduated in 83 ... anyway it works for me 

turned over milk crete makes a good time out jail in my pen

 

[RichardandTresa]

Hi Luvbird,

Yes, I understood your upside down cage in the pen. I just happen to have two large rabbit transport cages with individual pens. Fold up, portable and easy to set up. Just seemed easy. They each get a food and water tray and it will be only a couple of more weeks before my final male breeder selection then everyone else is off to "freezer camp" LOL!

Thanks for explaining.

PS: I "think" I read somewhere here that there was some sort of lotion/cream that I could put on the back of their necks that is distasteful to the Quail and keeps them from grabbing their necks?

Anyone know what it is and/or if it works?

Thanks!

Richard

 

[quailgirl5678]

I don't have any aggressive quail, but you might want to isolate him for a little while from the females give them a break and see if that calms him down. You could also try again isolating him and trying to bond with him give him his own space and lots of food and water and a comfortable place to relax. His aggressive behavior might be him trying to protect his females or this is not likely but stop you from taking the eggs then again I wouldn't know anything about the eggs thing cuz my quail are refusing to breed.... but I was also thinking the gender undecided one might "decide" once the other male is gone and it might be good for the females to have a non aggressive male. anyways good luck I hope one of my suggestions might help you!

 

[RichardandTresa]

QUAIL JAIL:

Well I had to do something! The males in our grow out pens were pecking each other to death... Literally! Overnight, we had three scalped heads (one bleeding) and one with really bad chest wounds...

I had two extra folding rabbit transport cages that were destined to become additional grow out cages, but these guys still had 2 ~ 3 weeks of growing to do before Freezer Camp... We pulled out the wounded and the most aggressive and put them all into isolation.

MUCH BETTER NOW!

I'm hoping to find some more of these cages to add to our grow out pens and keep these as is for future "Quail-Jail" penitentiary domiciles...

While I was taking this photo, "Death Row" comes to mind... Too dark, but honestly (Inside), I'm secretly laughing my head off and can't think of any better title than "Death Row" (Especially when I walk by and all their heads stick out to watch me leave... LOL!

PS: After a few days of isolation, the wounded are healing very nicely!

Richard

 

[Quail Jailer]

How bout "Death Roo"...