Are quail molting cycles similar to chickens? As in mostly in the fall, controlled by daylight length?
My quail are 9 weeks old tomorrow. They've been outside in the aviary pen I set up for about two weeks. Our weather is..........variable to put it nicely.
Previously they were in my basement in a brooder and then in a stacked community battery style cage while I worked on finishing up the aviary. In the battery cage they were in a steady 16 hrs of artificial light, but the females hadnt started laying, males were definitely getting hormonal.
When I moved them out to the aviary 2 weeks ago, some of the females started laying a day or two later. I was getting about 3 eggs a day. Boys were crowing and doing boy things.
This last week, I'm seeing way more feathers in the pen. Boys are quiet, no crows and no chasing anything that moves to mate with it. And eggs have dried up.
Could the move from 16 hours of constant artificial light to a shorter natural daylight cycle have made them think its fall? Time to molt and stop laying?
My quail are 9 weeks old tomorrow. They've been outside in the aviary pen I set up for about two weeks. Our weather is..........variable to put it nicely.
Previously they were in my basement in a brooder and then in a stacked community battery style cage while I worked on finishing up the aviary. In the battery cage they were in a steady 16 hrs of artificial light, but the females hadnt started laying, males were definitely getting hormonal.
When I moved them out to the aviary 2 weeks ago, some of the females started laying a day or two later. I was getting about 3 eggs a day. Boys were crowing and doing boy things.
This last week, I'm seeing way more feathers in the pen. Boys are quiet, no crows and no chasing anything that moves to mate with it. And eggs have dried up.
Could the move from 16 hours of constant artificial light to a shorter natural daylight cycle have made them think its fall? Time to molt and stop laying?
