BillyBeans
Hatching
- Aug 25, 2025
- 1
- 0
- 2
Hey all! Thank you for taking the time to read. I am new to the community, and also new to Quail keeping and raising.
We got our first flock from our neighbours, 1 male and 3 females, all the females were laying when we got them, but I’m not sure exactly how old they are. We noticed one lady was getting picked on quite heavily right off the bat (missing head feathers and scabby, some blood under her wing). We separated her within the larger enclosure to let her rest and hang out for a little (she has no line of sight to the other birds and has healed up nicely, and has been there about 2 weeks) But ultimately, from all the reading I have done, they are social birds and I wanted to integrate her back into the flock, also because the ratio is off and the male might start to overbreed the remaining females?
Yesterday morning we pulled the three birds (1 male and 2 females) to a new cage, cleaned and rearranged the old cage, removed the barrier holding the isolated one back and then put the 3 back in the main enclosure (the one that was isolated that I wanted to integrate was always in the main enclosure, I never moved her into the temporary cage with the others while I cleaned and rearranged things, problem?). Immediately upon integration the same bird was getting picked on, pretty much exclusively by the male, a bit by another female. We removed her and went back to the original setup, but all hell has broken loose with the other three birds now. The male was picking on a different female, and then one of the ladies was beating up badly on him. So currently, they are all separated individually to ovoid injury or worse. I’ve definitely messed with the pecking order, and didn’t do the reintroduction properly. I’m wondering if now I face a whole other problem, as I have separated all 4 birds individually, Or if I should just try again and be patient. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!
We got our first flock from our neighbours, 1 male and 3 females, all the females were laying when we got them, but I’m not sure exactly how old they are. We noticed one lady was getting picked on quite heavily right off the bat (missing head feathers and scabby, some blood under her wing). We separated her within the larger enclosure to let her rest and hang out for a little (she has no line of sight to the other birds and has healed up nicely, and has been there about 2 weeks) But ultimately, from all the reading I have done, they are social birds and I wanted to integrate her back into the flock, also because the ratio is off and the male might start to overbreed the remaining females?
Yesterday morning we pulled the three birds (1 male and 2 females) to a new cage, cleaned and rearranged the old cage, removed the barrier holding the isolated one back and then put the 3 back in the main enclosure (the one that was isolated that I wanted to integrate was always in the main enclosure, I never moved her into the temporary cage with the others while I cleaned and rearranged things, problem?). Immediately upon integration the same bird was getting picked on, pretty much exclusively by the male, a bit by another female. We removed her and went back to the original setup, but all hell has broken loose with the other three birds now. The male was picking on a different female, and then one of the ladies was beating up badly on him. So currently, they are all separated individually to ovoid injury or worse. I’ve definitely messed with the pecking order, and didn’t do the reintroduction properly. I’m wondering if now I face a whole other problem, as I have separated all 4 birds individually, Or if I should just try again and be patient. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!
