Male quaul drawing blood from females

Flandan311 · Apr 20, 2023

Hello there! I am ew to the community and raising quail im general. My husband and I recently acquired 9 quail. 1 roo and 8 hens. They were about 8 weeks when we got them and have been in a fairly large hutch with adequate food and water and being checked on frequently for a few weeks now. A week or so ago, right when we believe they were going to reach maturity, the roo began attacking a couple of the females. It happened very quickly and 2 of the hens had been pecked in the back of the head so bad they were bleeding. We quickly separated the 2 that were injured from the coup an gave them their separate environment. They have healed up nicely but just today I realized that he had drawn blood from another hen so I removed her as well. I have observed them in their enclosure and he appears to be very aggressive. All of the hens are obviously frightening of him so we will be removing him. I wanted to know if anyone knew why this was the case and what we could do about it. This is our first quails so we do not gave other roos

WoDia · Apr 20, 2023

I raise Bobwhites, and all of my males and females live in a large covey… so a bit different from your setup. I’ve fortunately never had blood drawn before, but sometimes feathers are plucked out by the overly-eager males. I can only tell you what I’d do in that situation…. if he continued to draw blood, I’d remove the little demon for awhile. Then, I’d possibly attempt (based on his behavior) supervised reintroduction. You’ll be the best judge as to whether that’ll even be possible. A new roo may be in order if you plan to breed. Good wishes!