Male Coturnix Quail won't stop mounting our Female Coturnix Quail

[janen_33]

Hi all,

OK, so we have a male Coturnix that won't stop mounting our female Coturnix. I them them separated in a 4x4 pen because it got so bad that he pulled out all her feathers on her poor little head. I've been searching online for info., but can't find any that really answers why he's doing this (all the time). They can see each other, but he reeeeealy wants to be with her, but I don't think she really wants to be with him. I feel this is a good remedy and livable situation, but I would LOVE input from the forum because I don't want them to be miserable.

Quick history: We got the male as a 'gift' from a friend (it was unplanned) and was told it was a 2 yr. old female. A few weeks later I got 'another' female (10 wks. old) from one of our gracious forum members. The 2 y/o would not stop mounting the 10 wk. old, so I separated them in their pen. I finally figured out that the 2 y/o is a male!

So there it is....any ideas?

Thank you!
Jane

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

That's what they do! 24/7 Get more females, so the feather loss is minumized.

I have a bunch, come get some females!

 

[JJMR794]

He's Doing His Job... He Needs A Harem. The Best Overall Ratio Is 1 Male To About 5 Females.... They Can Cover A Couple More And Still Maintain Good Fertility. Most Of All Your Girl Needs A Lil Help... If He Has 5 Or 6 Ladies To Tend To Then The Overly Amorous Lil Booger Wont Be So Focused On Just 1 Hen And It Kind Of "shares The Wealth" Over All The Hens.

 

[janen_33]

Thanks for the feedback! I sort of figured we needed more females to keep him happy. It sucks because we hadn't planned on getting any other birds at this time, so our 'quick fix' (for what we thought was a female) was to get another female to see if she'd stop calling out every night..it worked, but as you know we actually got a male so now our dilemma is to figure out if we actually have enough room for 3 more females in our 4x4 pen.

I realize it'd be easy to add on to the quail pen, but we're limited on space since their pen is inside our 'aviary' (as my hubby likes to call it) which houses 4 chickens, a chicken coop, and Lady Amherst. Our aviary is 20x20, which sounds sizeable, but with the quail pen and coop, gets downsized quickly...ok, enough rambling, my $100k question is: can the 4x4 comfortably house 5 quail? If so, then I'm off to buy some more girlies...

Thanks!

Jane
Mini-farm girl...4 chickens, 1 Lady Amherst, 2 Coturnix Chubby's..oh and 2 dogs...

 

[mhwc56]

Quote:
rule of thumb for Coturnix space is 1 bird / 1 sq. ft. ( at least that's what everyone on here says....) so a 4X4 pen can hold UP TO 16 coturnix... 6 would love all that space i suspect!

 

[Stellar]

That boy needs more girls

THere will be always some hens that are a little more favored than others (and you can tell!

)

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
Those are the ones with the Annie Lennox / Suzanne Power look

 

[joe125]

Quote:
Those are the ones with the Annie Lennox / Suzanne Power look

I just call them "Love patches", but I don't fret about missing feathers on coturnix. More hens will probably not hurt.

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
Not everyone. I would say 4 birds would go in a sqr foot(as long as were talking about Coturnix). I know there are those on here that would flip out by that statement so take it for what it is worth.

 

[mhwc56]

Quote:
Not everyone. I would say 4 birds would go in a sqr foot(as long as were talking about Coturnix). I know there are those on here that would flip out by that statement so take it for what it is worth.

yah, i can understand that "flip out " thing....that's like 'sardine can' living quarters!