Mama throwing her babies around

[Lgrearly]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

 

[Emelyn]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

@pterry97

 

[DobieLover]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

I had a chicken behave this way. I took the chicks away from her and put her in a broody breaker where she screamed her head off for the day and stayed in the crate for 4 days.

The chicks distress peeped for the day and by the next day were over having Mommy Dearest fling them around by their wings and jam them back under her. They stayed in the coop brooder with a brooder plate until my second broody hen hatched her chick then she adopted the first hens brood and raised them with hers.

 

[FloorCandy]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

Some don’t take well to raising chicks, you should move them to a brooder without her.

 

[Ravenlover]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

Take them away right now !!! I had one who was a good mom the other started pecking soon as the first hatched i had to take them all away

 

[pterry97]

My button quail hen laid eggs and 3 hatched (this is a first for me...and her) I've been watching her and she seems super aggressive like picking the chicks up and throwing them, and pecking at them. Is this normal behavior? I thought maybe she was culling a sick one herself and I was going to take the baby out but she attacked me so I don't know what to do now???? She's doing it to all the chicks now. I had to take the male & the other 2 females out & they keep calling to each other. Could it just be stress from being separated from the rest of her family? Urgent help needed please

Sounds like an urgent removal is needed. You’ll need to health check the chicks and see the extent of the damage. Sometimes birds have the instinct to sit on their eggs, but once those eggs become chicks, they sometimes don’t recognise it as the same thing, so her chicks just become ‘intruders’. They’ll have a better shot surviving with you than with her it sounds like.