my quail is pecking the other's feet

[04Oliver12]

i have 2 button quails ( a male and female) who have been together since birth and have done fine up to now but the male has started to peck the females feet and make them sore and sometimes bleed. why is this happening and how can i prevent it?

 

[HUGHES555]

I cant say I've ever had that problem but you might want to separate them. Divide the cage with some hardware cloth or something. But make it where they can still see each other just not get to each other for about a week. See if that doesn't fix the problem.

 

[birdmandan]

If you look at the quails feet and google a picture of a mealworm, you will see they look similar. The bird thinks it is getting a delicious snack. Difficult problem to fix though. Hard to prevent feet pecking, once the habit stsrts. What bedding are you using for the quails? If the feet are partially covered by the bedding, they are more likely to peck.

 

[DK newbie]

I never feed my buttons meal worms for this exact reason - I've never had it happen, but I've read that it can and so I never took the chance and fed them meal worms. So - do you feed them meal worms? If so, stop it! It might not be possible to make him stop thinking her toes are worms, but I'd say there is a reasonable chance if there are NEVER any actual worms around him. Eventually he should stop searching for them.
If you already got them into a habit of expecting worms from you, you could let your worms turn into beetles and feed them the beetles - they don't look like toes in any way. I gave a meal worm beetle to one of my buttons this morning for the first time and she loved it - wouldn't even share with her chicks ^^ But they are getting kind of big, guess she doesn't think they need her care anymore.
I agree with hughes that it might be necessary to separate them for a while - in particular if here are wounds on the hens feet now.

 

[04Oliver12]

I havent fed them meal worms and i use sawdust for rabbit cages on the bottom so their feet are usually covered. Thanks for all the suggestions and ill try seperating them for a while to see if it helps

 

[birdmandan]

A quail foot covered in sawdust with a toe or 2 sticking out of the sawdust resembles a snack. Quails are not known for their intelligence. Change the bedding or seperate them and you will be fine.

 

[Binki]

Just an idea, can you paint some blue kote on their toes? I don't have experience with it but I think it's supposed to deter pecking because of the color it dyes whatever it touches?

 

[William Mellor15]

I havent fed them meal worms and i use sawdust for rabbit cages on the bottom so their feet are usually covered. Thanks for all the suggestions and ill try seperating them for a while to see if it helps

Did you ever have any luck in the end? I know this was 5 years ago but i'm currently having the same problem, any advice?

 

[007Sean]

Did you ever have any luck in the end? I know this was 5 years ago but i'm currently having the same problem, any advice?

The OP you're responding to, hasn't been on here since 2017. You probably won't get a response.

 

[Birdadvocate]

The OP you're responding to, hasn't been on here since 2017. You probably won't get a response.

I realize these post are grandfathered but it's a topic of interest to us. For years we have occasionally researched the topic because we have a male button (pet) that frequently pecks at our feet and will peck you in the eye if you let him get close enough. Got me once & took a chunk.

What we have found out consistently is bullying & pecking order. Having observed this for many years in our male buttons we theorize it's mostly probably pecking order like the "alpha" dog in canines.

Just maintaining their status in the group. This particular button's first sight was us so he believes we are a covey and he's the head of the covey and has to continually show his dominance.

He's right because we spoiled him rotten from the get go. At least that's our theory and occasional articles on Google seem to corroborate.

If anyone finds out different give us a shout out.