I feel so bad! My quails were fighting!

[Farmerabr169]

Ok I so separate the male and the female. So I have one box with a injured female. One with a male. And a coop with 4 females. The male I took out because while I was getting stuff ready he was chasing the injured one and I don’t trust him enough to not decide to go after another one. I don’t not know why he picked to attack this one (she is not the smallest or weakest so) and I won’t risk the health of my others. The hard part for me is that I live in Minnesota so it gets cold. They stay in the garage with heat lamps during the winter and I let them run around outside on nice days (despite how few we have). I have a lot of extra lamps and extra heat pad, I put the pad with the female and a heat lamp and I have the make a bit stronger of a lamp and I made sure the box was insulated but had breathing room. I also gave him a nice little bowl kinda buried in the bedding with bedding patted down in it. (I’ve seen him hide under and in a similar bowl I left In the coop.) here to Tom they both being ok, the female is more worried some. I made sure use some antibiotic I once got for my chickens, I used a smaller dose just to be safe and I put some vetRX on her wound and such.

 

[Kullas]

When you have some time to watch them or check in on them put the male back in with the females and see what happens. How long has the male and the injured one been together? How old are they?

 

[Farmerabr169]

When you have some time to watch them or check in on them put the male back in with the females and see what happens. How long has the male and the injured one been together? How old are they?

They are 3 months and they have been together since birth. I had a few more males but I gave them away to avoid fighting so it left me with one male and 5 female. They were fine with the male sometimes yelling and I saw once when it was abit nice and I put him and two girls on the floor in my house just for fun and he started chasing one of the females so I had to put him in the coop otherwise I never thought he would attack another one that bad. The girl was always the target I guess. Bottom of the pecking order, I had a chicken like that but all she got was pushed and a few plucked feathers but once they got old they left her be. The male is yelling a lot now that he is away from the girls but out of fear I don’t want to put him back, if that’s wrong someone tell me and I’ll move him back. And yeah I can try a few times to put him and see but the thing is it seems he never plucks or anything unless im not there.

 

[le_bwah]

What kind of cage do you keep them in? I'm curious what level of cover they have.

 

[Kullas]

He is crowing for his girls. If you put him back in it will slow way down.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

I'm going through the exact same thing. Last week one hen turned mean and started picking on another hen, over one day she pecked her eye out! I treated with just coconut oil twice daily and within 4 days realized the eye was actually still there! Just yesterday i tried to put her back and within 4 hours her eye was pecked bad again. Now i dont know what to do because she is sad being away from the others. So I got a bigger house tha i am seting up for them and am going to try to buy some more hens. I was down to theee hens so i think thats what my problem was. I'm hoping the bigger space will help alot too.
meanwhile the coconut oil worked GREAT, the eye immediately got better as far as how inflamed and red it was and never got infected and healed within 5 days completely. (I actually use pure coconut oil in my own eyes as I have chronic dry eyes.)
But the poor hen only has half her eyelid, enough to keep her eye moist but its not protected enough from the mean hen.
I hope that your little hen recovers well, sounds like you are doing the good things for her, and I hope you can introduce her back into the group ok. Try to keep her pen near the others so they can hear each other and at least it will help with her lonliness.

 

[Kullas]

I dont want sound cruel but sometimes no matter how much we want all of them to live great lives. Some of the birds is just not ment to make it. And without human intervention they would not. In the wild only the strong survive. If you plan on collecting the eggs and hatching more you dont want to continue the traits of the weak ones. I'm not saying just kill all the weak ones but they will need a special place to live there lives. Another thing you may try is swapping that hen with another hen in another pen. And see if that helps.