Male Coturnix newbie question

[NY Coturnix]

Hello all.

I've been reading this message board for a couple months and have gotten a lot good info. Had my first hatch April 1st and have 17 quail housed in 3 x 10 foot hutch that's split equally into 3 separate pens. Anyway...middle pen 8 quail 2 roos 6 hen left pen had the other 9 males. Sunday I noticed some blood on the heads of 2 male so I split them up. The 3 more aggressive males went into the open pen to the right of my mixed pen and the remaining 6 to the left. The 3 pens are separated by a plywood wall. The 3 bad boys are now getting along fine but I'm seeing the other 6 males mounting each other with some feathers being pulled. Doesn't appear to be fighting, is this just a dominance issue?

My intentions when I started was eggs and meat but my wife started naming them so I told her I'd try and "find a use" for the extra males but that their "kids" wouldn't be given names. She's starting to come over to the other side with the boys acting up so much.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Nabiki]

Keeping extra males is hard. The ideal ratio is 1 male to 4-5 females. Males almost always fight, and when they do it gets bloody and can easily end in death. I would certainly eat the most aggressive males.

Good luck!

 

[Fenrisulfr]

It can work, to have a pure male flock.
But you need to keep some rules:

1st enough space, so they can get out of of their ways in agressive situations
2nd no females in sight and hear range
3rd feed lower protein ... high protein food stimulate the sexual activity

But there is no absolut guaranty that it work.
Even if you remove a very agressive male, it offen happens that one, which was very calm till removal, gets agressive due to the new pecking order.

 

[NY Coturnix]

It can work, to have a pure male flock.
But you need to keep some rules:

1st enough space, so they can get out of of their ways in agressive situations
2nd no females in sight and hear range
3rd feed lower protein ... high protein food stimulate the sexual activity

But there is no absolut guaranty that it work.
Even if you remove a very agressive male, it offen happens that one, which was very calm till removal, gets agressive due to the new pecking order.

Thanks everyone for the quick responses. The calm male seems to have tried to take over so I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. They do seem to spend a lot of time staring at the "wall". I didn't think about them hearing the females. Thought if I had them out of sight it would do the trick. I'll bet that's it.

 

[Quailobsessed]

Hello all.

I've been reading this message board for a couple months and have gotten a lot good info. Had my first hatch April 1st and have 17 quail housed in 3 x 10 foot hutch that's split equally into 3 separate pens. Anyway...middle pen 8 quail 2 roos 6 hen left pen had the other 9 males. Sunday I noticed some blood on the heads of 2 male so I split them up. The 3 more aggressive males went into the open pen to the right of my mixed pen and the remaining 6 to the left. The 3 pens are separated by a plywood wall. The 3 bad boys are now getting along fine but I'm seeing the other 6 males mounting each other with some feathers being pulled. Doesn't appear to be fighting, is this just a dominance issue?

My intentions when I started was eggs and meat but my wife started naming them so I told her I'd try and "find a use" for the extra males but that their "kids" wouldn't be given names. She's starting to come over to the other side with the boys acting up so much.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks

Welcome to BYC! Glad you joined. I had been reading the threads for years before I joined.

I keep two males together. It works fine because they actually like each other. I do still give them plenty of space though. I keep them in a large coop with my golden pheasants and my poor lone california quail male.