Introductions went wrong, how do I make it work?

[the-greenest-thumb]

This is a little complicated so sorry for any confusion.

We started with 3 hens (and a roo, though he went to freezer camp later). The 3 hens are Lace, Shit and Nervy.

We hatched some of their eggs so that we could add some hens to our flock. We put the 5 babies in a cage right up against the hens cage so that they could see each other etc. They've been next to each other since they've hatched, 6 weeks now, without issue.

9 days ago one of the hens (Shit) injured herself spooking in the middle of the night and has been in a hospital cage. She's healing up wonderfully. Past couple days her and her sisters had been calling to each other all day and not eating. I thought she was healed enough and because they were getting stressed without a flock I thought to reintroduce her.

I put the 3 hens in a carrier and was restructuring the cage so everything was new, but as I was cleaning Lace started attacking Shit so I put her back in the hospital cage.

As Lace and Nervy were getting stressed without enough flock members I thought to introduce one of the younger girls. Lace immediately started attacking the new one, I then remembered you shouldn't introduce just one bird so I added everybody all together, minus Shit.

But Lace continued attacking all the new birds so I thought to remove her as the others seemed chill and clearly she was the problem. All was fine for like 15min then one of the young birds started attacking everybody too, including her sisters she'd been fine with. So I gave up and put everybody back in the original setups.


But now I don't know what to do because everything I've read on introducing new birds is to put them in cages next to each other so they can get used to each other safely, then clean and restructure the cage so everybody starts in a new territory essentially. I did all that but they just want to murder each other.

I am planning on building a much bigger cage and had wanted to house them all together in there. Am I missing something on introducing quail?

 

[Nabiki]

After you rearrange their pen, you might try putting them all into it at night so they wake up together.

How much space is their pen?
Do they have enough hiding places?

 

[the-greenest-thumb]

After you rearrange their pen, you might try putting them all into it at night so they wake up together.

How much space is their pen?
Do they have enough hiding places?

I worry if I do that they'll murder each other while I sleep.

The cages are 4.5 square feet each. I do have some hiding spots; plant pots, fake plants, and a high walled sandbox. But the aggressors just followed them into the hiding places and continued attacking

 

[Nabiki]

The cage sounds small. You want at least 1 square foot per bird after you've subtracted the space used by feeders, waterers, sand bath, and hiding places. Your hiding places should have two entrance/exits so that your birds can't be trapped inside by an aggressor.

You generally don't have to worry about them murdering each other during the night since they are diurnal and sleep when it's dark.

 

[the-greenest-thumb]

The cage sounds small. You want at least 1 square foot per bird after you've subtracted the space used by feeders, waterers, sand bath, and hiding places. Your hiding places should have two entrance/exits so that your birds can't be trapped inside by an aggressor.

You generally don't have to worry about them murdering each other during the night since they are diurnal and sleep when it's dark.

Unfortunately I was given poor advice about cage size, though it should still meet the minimum for 3 hens.

What kind of hiding places do you reccomend? When I google for examples it's all flower pots and guinea pig houses etc. Nothing with 2 entrances

During the night sure, but they wake up like 5 hours before I do in the morning and that's when I worry there'll be a bloodbath.

 

[Nabiki]

I use dollar store baskets or small cardboard boxes. I cut the entrances into those.

You could cover the cage so it stays dark until you get up.

I'm guessing that you were told something like 3 birds per square foot. That is what commercial breeders use for space requirements, but to my mind, that is just cruel. Part of the reason I decided to raise some of my own meat is because I don't like the way commercial meat producers treat their animals.

 

[farmer90]

I love the names! Usually for me it's been working well when I just toss in handful of quails with the flock when they're 3 weeks old. They are stressed for a couple of days but will get along eventually.

I have had experience with one nasty hen who didn't like newcomers and tried to murder them without any hesitation. In this case I used 'see but no touch ' method for a couple of days. I separated them with net and there was loads of yelling and murder attempts behind the net. Eventually she calmed down and by the time I removed the separator, she had already forgotten the reasons for hate.