Mean/Aggressive Quail roo? Or normal?

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

One of my roos drags the hens around by their neck/head feathers and chases them around constantly...grabbing any hen that is close by.
He doesn't seem like he knows how to mate well.... and the younger hens are totally not into it.

He's 6.5 weeks and most of the hens in there are only 4-5 weeks. Does that make a difference?

We already had to cull one male for being overly aggressive, I'd hate to do it to another, but he's making all my hens bald and stressed out.

I just don't know if this is normal or overly aggressive for mating.

 

[shrimpsilkies]

He seems inexperienced and too rough. I wouldn’t keep him with inexperienced hens. If you have any tough old hens that can fight back or other roos to keep him with you can try to see if he can learn manners with age, but most people would just cull him. If he isn’t your only male then he isn’t really necessary.

 

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

He seems inexperienced and too rough. I wouldn’t keep him with inexperienced hens. If you have any tough old hens that can fight back or other roos to keep him with you can try to see if he can learn manners with age, but most people would just cull him. If he isn’t your only male then he isn’t really necessary.

Thank you.

Unfortunately, all my hens are either his age or younger. He's already ripped the feathers out of the heads of 6 hens in a matter of days.
This morning he was being so brutal that I separated him to a different cage so that he wouldn't hurt the hens any further.

We have 1 quail that we think might be a male, but we don't know for sure yet because it's too young. "He" was injured last night by the other aggressive male we had (that we culled last night). I have the injured one separated to heal, but one the head scabs over I'll try him in the cage with the hens that have been defeathered.

I knew that quails could be mean sometimes... but I feel like all the males I've had so far are brutal. My poor hens are so stressed.

 

[FloorCandy]

It can go either way. I have a beautiful boy I call Prince. He’s white with very faint purple gray manchurian snowie markings, and he has beautiful blue eyes. He’s about 12-14 weeks old now and every hen I put in with him, he would grab them by the neck feathers and viciously pull them until they submitted. He matured early was crowing at 3 weeks and feverishly humping any bird in his path at 4 weeks. Most males will jump on and take a ride without much care about the hens feelings or behavior, so if she isn’t into it he rodeo rides for 3 seconds and goes about the rest of his day. It seemed like Prince couldn’t handle the hen saying no, and would only get on if she submitted and leaned down and stayed still. He bloodied and balded, ( not scalped just pulled out feathers, some peck marks in the naked areas but not too bad) a couple young hens in the grow out, so I brought him inside, and I put him with a few big, older hens who Ive had good results with breaking in new boys. All was fine for several days, they lost some head feathers but no injuries or blood. I added 2 young hens his age, and he seemed happy, one bird was favorite, but with 5 ladies he didn’t seem to be ripping out feathers all was well.

A couple weeks went by, everything was fine, I was going to move him and his ladies back outside once I sold a few birds to give him a private pen because he will try to kill any male near his ladies. I was so hopeful because he was going to be a foundation bird for a project I’m working on. One morning my husband wakes me up early. He tells me that he thinks the white male attacked 2 of the others, one is my favorite who we call big Bertha because she’s huge. The male looks unharmed but is pink all over and red up front from the blood. He said it was so bad he was gonna cull them so they wouldn’t suffer, but he didn’t want to cull Bertha without me knowing. I ran to see, and they were both fluffed up, shivering, and totally scalped.

Luckily he waited for me because a scalping in a bird looks way worse than it is. I took him out and tossed him in male jail, kind of secretly hoping hed get his butt kicked. I tended the girls, cleaned them up and they’re fine, it’s been like 2 weeks. They live with the snow angels for now while they regrow some feathers, but the skin healed fine.

So Prince has been the uncontested king of male jail for 2 weeks now, and no one tries to fight anyone else at all. Did I mention he’s the smallest one? However I’m not sure I can ever put him with hens. I don’t want to perpetuate bad qualities in my birds. I guess time will tell, as they get older sometimes they chill out.

 

[shrimpsilkies]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, all my hens are either his age or younger. He's already ripped the feathers out of the heads of 6 hens in a matter of days.
This morning he was being so brutal that I separated him to a different cage so that he wouldn't hurt the hens any further.

We have 1 quail that we think might be a male, but we don't know for sure yet because it's too young. "He" was injured last night by the other aggressive male we had (that we culled last night). I have the injured one separated to heal, but one the head scabs over I'll try him in the cage with the hens that have been defeathered.

I knew that quails could be mean sometimes... but I feel like all the males I've had so far are brutal. My poor hens are so stressed.

It’s unfortunate that humans bred them like that. It must be odd for a bird that in the past only lived in pairs to be forced into a flock lifestyle more like chickens... but I suppose highly fertile, productive males also mean more aggressive, polygamous males, so we’ve just got to cull the mean ones and hope the nice ones have more gentlemanly sons! Eventually you will find a decent, gentle male, but it may take a few hatches. I have a nice homegrown male who is super gentle even though he is huge (he bonded to my jumbo hen and is now extra defensive, but that’s a whole other issue!)

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

He seems inexperienced and too rough. I wouldn’t keep him with inexperienced hens. If you have any tough old hens that can fight back or other roos to keep him with you can try to see if he can learn manners with age, but most people would just cull him. If he isn’t your only male then he isn’t really necessary.

Experienced hens don't appreciate awkward newbies. If you really like this roo, keep him separated for a while while the girls catch up.

I've noticed that males mature to mating stage a few weeks before the hens are ready. I'd say interested, but the hens never seem interested in being mounted. Right now I'm integrating a young roo to be given to someone whose older hens are NOT going to tolerate a newbie. They killed the last one that was introduced.

 

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

Experienced hens don't appreciate awkward newbies. If you really like this roo, keep him separated for a while while the girls catch up.

I've noticed that males mature to mating stage a few weeks before the hens are ready. I'd say interested, but the hens never seem interested in being mounted. Right now I'm integrating a young roo to be given to someone whose older hens are NOT going to tolerate a newbie. They killed the last one that was introduced.

My quail hens are still young... all of them are 6 weeks and under. At what point would they be "ready" for a male?

I also have 2 other males from the same hatch out that seem to have no interest in mating. They crow and strut around.... but that's it. Should I be worried about that?

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

They are still so young. With my first batch, one roo matured early and was filled with hormones. He became the test of whether I really could cull one if I needed to. (Hint: the answer is yes.)

I've noticed that at about 5-8 weeks they often start crowing and surprising themselves. The drive to reproduce doesn't necessarily follow right away. By the time they're fully mature, about 8-10 weeks old, they'll jump on anything that moves, including other roos if they must.

If this is your first batch, you have two choices: Separate the roos and wait until the hens mature, or cull the roosters right away. If you separate them, you'll have the opportunity to choose the one you'll keep from all of them.

Watch your birds. Take your randy roo out and put him in a separate cage with the ones he doesn't try to mate (we'll presume they're either male -- or ugly hens). If you keep the two cages far enough apart, the urge to merge diminishes and the males will continue along their merry way until they hit full maturity, when you'll be forced to make a decision on which one stays. (Introduce them 1 at a time to the females and see which ones mesh best, and see which one has the characteristics you want to breed going forward.)

 

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

They are still so young. With my first batch, one roo matured early and was filled with hormones. He became the test of whether I really could cull one if I needed to. (Hint: the answer is yes.)

I've noticed that at about 5-8 weeks they often start crowing and surprising themselves. The drive to reproduce doesn't necessarily follow right away. By the time they're fully mature, about 8-10 weeks old, they'll jump on anything that moves, including other roos if they must.

If this is your first batch, you have two choices: Separate the roos and wait until the hens mature, or cull the roosters right away. If you separate them, you'll have the opportunity to choose the one you'll keep from all of them.

Watch your birds. Take your randy roo out and put him in a separate cage with the ones he doesn't try to mate (we'll presume they're either male -- or ugly hens). If you keep the two cages far enough apart, the urge to merge diminishes and the males will continue along their merry way until they hit full maturity, when you'll be forced to make a decision on which one stays. (Introduce them 1 at a time to the females and see which ones mesh best, and see which one has the characteristics you want to breed going forward.)

So if I keep all my males seperate from the girl but together in the same cage they won't kill each other?

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

So if I keep all my males seperate from the girl but together in the same cage they won't kill each other?

If you keep the roos in a separate cage, they tend to leave their mating instincts behind. I'm not sure a simple divider between roos and hens will work though. Roos may need a separate cage out range from the females.

Anyone here have experience keeping them close together? Will the males compete among themselves for females nearby but out of reach?