Need guidance for females cohabiting with male coturnix quail

[UrbanQuailMama]

I'm new to quails and could use a little guidance! I have (5) coturnix females. My 7 wk girls are laying eggs, the others are about 5 wks old. I also have males which have been separated from the females because I don't intent to keep them... with the exception of possibly one. We are raising our girls as pets and for eggs. Once we're comfortable enough, we may try our hand at hatching some eggs if we decide to keep a male. Here's where I'm looking for some guidance... Our ratio of 5 females to 1 male should work well. But I have questions about housing a male with them permanently since our main objective is not to continually incubate eggs.

• Is it alright to house him permanently with my girls?
• Is it okay to continue to eat eggs that may possibly be fertilized?
• Do males breed/fertilize year round or seasonally?
• Will it affect how content my girls are having a male with them vs. being by themselves?
• Anything else I need to know?

Thank you for all your assistance! My family and I are loving this adventure!

 

[702Quails]

1. As long as he isn't too aggressive. Males are usually only a problem when there's too many of them, which results in the females being over-bred. A sign of over-breeding is the back of females' heads being completely bald and possibly bloody. Certain males, or even females, can become a bully and pick on the other birds. Signs of that would be bald and bloody scalps, missing tail feathers or missing eyes.

2. There's no difference in regards to eating fertilized or unfertilized eggs.

3. It can be seasonally, if you don't provide them supplemental light during the fall and winter months. They need 14+ hours a day to be sexually active. If your male's crowing, then you know he's sexually active. Females also need that same amount of light to lay eggs.

4. There's no difference, as long as they're not stressed. Normally they will become stressed from sudden changes, over-breeding or bullying. Introducing your male to the other females might initially cause them to stop laying, but everything should go back to normal within a week or two.

5. Males can become less sexually active as early as 6 months. A lot of breeders replace their males every six months to compensate for this. So if you're going to incubate eggs, try to do it before six months to ensure the eggs will be fertile.

 

[Ebony Rose]

Is it alright to house him permanently with my girls?

• Is it okay to continue to eat eggs that may possibly be fertilized?
• Do males breed/fertilize year round or seasonally?
• Will it affect how content my girls are having a male with them vs. being by themselves?
• Anything else I need to know?

Absolutely alright to permanently house one male with your hens, and some hens refuse to lay unless they've got a boyfriend

You'll never taste the difference between fertile or infertile eggs, and without a very practiced eye, you'd not see the difference either.

Japanese coturnix quail can breed year-round, provided that they're getting enough sunlight or artificial light daily. They need 14+ hours a day to lay.

Feed them game bird feed if at all possible (I know it's not available in all countries). Game bird feed is specifically formulated to have the right balance of amino acids and correct percentage of protein to satisfy the needs of quail. Chicken feed isn't the same, the balance isn't right, and over the long haul quail fed chicken feed as their daily diet will have health and reproductive problems. I live in a country that sells what they call laying quail feed (only, no other formulation of game bird or quail feed available), and this feed is below the needed 24% protein, has the wrong balance of amino acids, and frankly isn't up to the task. I supplement it to get it as close to their needs as I'm able. If you must feed chicken feed, use chick starter that is not medicated, and boost the protein level of the feed with ground up, dry cat food (typically 30% protein), and/or finely chopped dark leafy greens and shredded veggies. It's not a perfect fix, but better than insufficient protein. Don't feed more than 10% of their daily diet as snack food... this includes things like millet, bird seed, or those veggies you finely chopped, or even mealworms. Smashed hard boiled eggs make hiding any sort of powdered medicine irresistible, at least for the first bite Drizzling a small bit of unsweetened yogurt over a small portion of their feed or treats will be a big hit with your flock. The watering dish should be very shallow and be filled with marbles or rocks (and water) until your quail chicks are between 10 to 14 days old as they fall asleep at the drop of a hat, particularly in the first 5 days after hatch, and can literally fall unconscious (sound asleep) in their waterer and drown. Move slowly around your quail, they frighten easily.

 

[BReeder!]

• Is it alright to house him permanently with my girls? Yes
• Is it okay to continue to eat eggs that may possibly be fertilized? Yes
• Do males breed/fertilize year round or seasonally? Likely yes if indoors with consistent lighting. Cool temps and less light cause the hens to stop laying and tge clocks to stop mating.
• Will it affect how content my girls are having a male with them vs. being by themselves? That depends on the temperament of the cock and the hens, as well as your setup. Places to hide and things to occupy their interest such as safe plants, rocks and dirt baths will help.
• Anything else I need to know? Keeping males seperated can be tricky. You may have a blood bath soon. I would cull any unwanted males as soon as they are butcher size 8-10 weeks.

 

[UrbanQuailMama]

**Wow, thank you all so much! This is extremely helpful! And thank you for including Slightly Redneck's videos. His videos look like he's such a good resource. I can't thank you all enough!

 

[702Quails]

**Wow, thank you all so much! This is extremely helpful! And thank you for including Slightly Redneck's videos. His videos look like he's such a good resource. I can't thank you all enough!

And if you're going to get an incubator, I would get this one:

https://www.coopsnmore.com/Rite_Farm_Products_1200_Pro_Digital_Egg_Incubator_p/2175.htm

For the price, you can't beat it. At under $50, it can incubate 48 quail or 12 chicken eggs, has an actual egg turner and the read out is in Fahrenheit. If you go to Amazon, pretty much everything under $80 will have: read outs in Celsius, the rolling turners (can damage eggs), a design only for chicken eggs and a low capacity (under 20 eggs). I have one of those Rite Farm incubators myself and it has been giving more accurate readings than the foam incubator I have. They're only going to be on sale up to the 15th of this month, though.

 

[Nabiki]

And if you're going to get an incubator, I would get this one:

https://www.coopsnmore.com/Rite_Farm_Products_1200_Pro_Digital_Egg_Incubator_p/2175.htm

For the price, you can't beat it. At under $50, it can incubate 48 quail or 12 chicken eggs, has an actual egg turner and the read out is in Fahrenheit. If you go to Amazon, pretty much everything under $80 will have: read outs in Celsius, the rolling turners (can damage eggs), a design only for chicken eggs and a low capacity (under 20 eggs). I have one of those Rite Farm incubators myself and it has been giving more accurate readings than the foam incubator I have. They're only going to be on sale up to the 15th of this month, though.

That's the incubator I have. I'm glad to see that I got the right one for the best price. My only problem is humidity. If I fill one rail with water as it says to in the instructions, it gets up to about 75%, which is way to high. If I put a piece of sponge (about 1/6 of a kitchen sponge) it gets up to about 50% for a while, but drops quickly, down to as low as 15% in 2-3 hours. If I want to keep it at 30%, I need to add a few drops of water every half hour or so. :-(

 

[Nabiki]

I think I found a fix for the humidity problem with the incubator! I wrapped the sides with plastic wrap, and the humidity started to rise. I unwrapped half of it, and humidity is holding stable. I didn't block any of the vents, just around where the lid and bottom meet. This means I can go to bed now instead of staying up all night keeping the humidity stable for the eggs in the middle of hatching.