mad quail desease

[Catfishingpokey]

ok yesterday when i got home from work i found that one of my male coturnix quail had taken most of the feathers and skin off of one of his little hens during the day.i reached in and took him out for a closer look and he had blood all over his head there was blood all over the sides of the breeder pen at the hieght of a quails head.i then deemed it attempted murder and sentenced him too life in the freezer. what do you all think caused him to do this.he is only 8 weeks old and the hens have just been laying for about 2 weeks.

 

[Catfishingpokey]

what no response???if any one is out there the little hens eyes have opened and she looks like she is going to live.

 

[Wifezilla]

Wow. I don't know anything about quail, but your sentence sounds appropriate.

 

[monarc23]

males can be extreemly violent during breeding season. Some quails (even hens) can be nasty to eachother during non-breeding season. I had to cull several birds to edit out all the nasties. A necc. evil. Some may deal with it differently, but my motto is, mean-gone. Would perfer not dealing with scalped heads and ripped up bodies.

Also.... how many hens did you have in with him? A good ratio is always 4-5 hens per male, so if theres less than 4 it could possibly be the problem not enough hens. If you have more than enough hens, i'd say he was just being aggressive because of hormones.

My boogers even fight pretty bad over food, however they never make eachother bleed over food just pick on eachother lol!

 

[chicktwit]

I'm glad she's trying. Definitely get him outta there. Find her a decent fella. I'm getting my first quail this weekend. This kinda worried me but I'll keep my eyes open & watch for probs. My little cot roo w/have several girlfriends. Good luck w/yours.

 

[Catfishingpokey]

Thanks for responses....we had more males out of our first hatch (only 5 hens) so had him in with 2 hens. Very well could be that he didn't have enough girls to keep busy. We've got an additional 3 roosters that will be more than willing to step in and fill the void. In fact, they are in a cage together, and have been singing love songs day and night. Good grief, they are loud!!!! I am sitting at the computer on the front end of the house, and I and can hear them plain as day. They are out in a metal building in our backyard about 25 yards away, and I can hear the crazy things.

The three males that live together have also been trying to romance each other, and in the process, they have all pulled feathers out of the tops of each others heads. It's not pecked at and bloody or anything, they are all just bald. And they don't appear to be fighting each other, really, just looking for love in all the wrong places. They look pretty funny. Quail pattern baldness? They better start working on growing some "hair" if they want to get a chance at romance for real. Or get some toupees......

Since we are raising them primarily as meat birds, the "cull the jerks" plan sounds ideal to me. Makes it a little easier to pick who goes first.

The little hen is healing up nicely. She is going to be fine, but if Pokey hadn't gotten the male outta the cage he'd have offed her. I told him maybe he got tired of listening to her gripe at him.

Thanks again for responses.....

Kim (answering for Pokey since he's in bed asleep)

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
yep i like the "cull the jerks" motto.

I also cull the overly skiddish quails (in both my species coturiix and buttons) I like calm and collected birds

. I to believe your problem lies in not enough hens but before you know it you could hatch out more hens from your birds you have now to fill that extra void if ya wanted. Good luck with your quailies!

yep, I had two scalped quail (bloody), theone looked like a deffinate gonner, within a week their booboos were almost nonexistant and another week later feathers growing back in. It's amazing what TLC will do.

 

[BirdBoy88]

i have had males coturnix rip all the skin off other males or hens heads and i don't like mean quail so to the pot they go if they do that...lol

 

[chickenma]

I always tell my birds. The only person that can be mean is me. I feed them and I 'm the big bird who decide live or die. And they better be nice.
We have enough crazy people in the house. We don't need carzy birds.
Even if they are bloody they are pretty strong for little birds.
They heal pretty good when you seperate them as soon as you see it.
And for the one that start all this is only one way to go. On the grill they go. Merry christmas and Happy New Year.