Male attacking laying female? Please help!

[Quail_holy_Grail]

so, I have had a convoy of 4 quail for about a month..when we purchased the birds we were told it was a male and three females...well it turned out to be two males and two females, however there was no aggression or fighting so we kept them together. We have been discussing getting more females anyway, but this morning one of my hens was bleeding on the neck and we saw the smaller boy quill attack her a bit. As he is the only one who has mates with them we simply cleaned up the wound and assumed it was accidental, but he did it again about midday. We have separated the girl but wondering whether now we should remove quill, or get more females (1 or 2) in order to spread the attention a bit as we are worried about the frequent mating of our poor girl. Although he has been with both, he has not attacked the other female and gets along great with my bigger male who seems incredibly laid-back about the whole situation. Please help us! Any advice?

 

[le_bwah]

Is he actually attacking her, or just over-mating? It's usually the boys that fight when the sex ratio is off. You could separate him from the others inside the pen to see if he mellows out. If he can't play nice, it might be time to look into a replacement roo (and more ladies).

 

[Erkenstein]

If it is really attacking and not just causing damage through mating (stalking, growling, chasing), separate the aggressive male and cull if necessary. A dead hen won't lay fertile eggs either.

It sounds like you have some options, so separating your males and giving them each three or four females is the best way to go. What happens if you put the non-aggressive male with the injured female?

When you add new birds, it's better to do it in a new cage or your current birds will see the new birds as a threat and you'll probably have fighting.