lone quail hen after fox attack - advice please

[jaqueelee]

Hi All - can someone give me some advice. I have had 7 mixed coturnix living together for the last year - one male. A fox got into their rabbit hutch last night and only one survived. She is a golden and physically unharmed. I have brought her indoors and have her in a large rabbit cage with hiding area etc. She has settled well enough (is eating and drinking) and used to live like this when she was younger. I have been out today and got another quail (hen) to keep her company - but she attacked it immediately and would not leave it alone - i had to remove it to another cage. I now have both birds in cages next to each other hoping they will settle and get friendly if they can see each other without being able to fight (not that the new quail got the chance to retaliate).

Can quail happily live alone... or should I persevere with introductions. Any ideas if they will eventually accept each other? Is my original hen just stressed and need to be alone for a while to recover? Any ideas or advice will be welcome. They are both alone now which is a shame for the new hen as she was previously housed with a lot of others - she has however stopped calling and is exploring her new home!!

Also I was thinking of keeping 3 all together or possibly sticking to two (not go back to 7as i intend to keep them indoors at night permanently) - I only got one as I thought two might gang up on the original - should I go and get another to put with my new hen now or wait a while?

My chickens are so much friendlier to each other!

 

[peewee]

Fist off I am sorry for the loss of your birds.
What I would do in introducing new birds to each other is to first figure out which cage you want to keep the girls in. Then remove all birds from that pen and go in and TOTALLY rearrange the pen. Move any hidey-holes to different spots. Move the feed and water. If you have any plants in there move them to a different spot on the pen (or what I would do is to change the plants out completely). Make it as different as possible. What this will do is to trick the first hen into thinking that it is a new place and hopefully will reduce any territorial reactions from her. Then put BOTH birds into the new area at the same time. You are still going to have to watch closely to see if the first hen will be accepting but I have always had good luck with introducing new birds this way.
Good luck with your birds.

 

[mhwc56]

Quote:
that is so sad...sorry ! i agree with Peewee. i've never had trouble introducing birds when i put them in a "new " cage together. They have no reason to be territorial this way so everyone pretty much gets along.

 

[jaqueelee]

thanks very much for your replies - I have them in cages next to each other today and have noticed them sitting near each other in their respective cages. I have a larger cage so am going to do as you say and set this up this evening when all is quiet and try the transfer into that - i will have the evenig to watch them and can still separate them if i need to. Thanks for your help