help, quail violence!

[offbeatbassist]

why are my birds doing this?

several birds are starting to show signs leading up to this, and we had one death.

this one started healing, but last night we added in 2 others that were starting to look damaged, one of those two attacked this one and re-opened the wounds, even tho hers were no longer bright red.

 

[kingmt]

There is a long list of could be's. Top picks are crowded, male/female ratio, & protein.

We need more info to help.

 

[offbeatbassist]

Sorry didn't know what to post..

With the cage that had the death, the males are just barely hitting sexual maturity.. would m/f ratio matter at 4 weeks?

For those I'd guess over crowded. We had 18 chicks in a storage bin (18x 32 inches) which seemed to be okay when they were small but guessing they've out grown it.

I have them all on chick grower crumbles. I think the protein is 26%.
The bigger ones I'd guess is ratio. I think they're 1:1 m/f

 

[GrandmaBird]

these look to be button quail aka Chinese Blue Breasted quail. They should be kept in single pairs one male to one female or you risk them doing just this thing. Poor birds.

Are they just turning 4 weeks or are they almost 5 weeks?

First off the tub is too small for more then 6-8 birds at this age so you should have them in several tubs or a much larger brooder.

I would guess that they are used to temps in the 75-80 range by now as it is summer so I would separate them asap.

You can treat the injuries with blu coat or similar but do separate the ones that are hurt from all others. You will need several hospital cages sounds like. Good luck.