chopin_the_quail
Chirping
Hi! 
Here's a long one to set the scene: we have a pair of quail - male (3 y/o) and female (2 y/o) that don't mate (the male is silly and prefers inanimate objects
). The female broke her wing this summer and stopped laying since. We were hoping to add females to the ranks, but unfortunately the incubations weren't successful, and we only hatched one bird, which we missexed at first and it turned out to be male, hatched 11/11.
We tried introducing him to the flock as a chick, but the female would try to peck off his feet and eyes, so we stopped.
Then we tried again around week 3, and the female was way more amiable, but would still peck his side on the way around the cage. He would overreact, panic and run around crazy, and spent a lot of time hiding on the roof of a hideyhole, where others don't go. However, in about a week they got more used to each other and it leveled out, they were navigating around each other more. If they look too stressed out, we separate for a night. During this time, his crow and mating interest settled in.
He chases around the other male and regularly tries to mount him. The other male is really calm and ignores it, but I can see he is starting to be stressed out. Newbie crowed a lot, but it seemed a somewhat reasonable amount compared to the older male's puberty back in the day. He also has minimal interest in the female, avoids her more than anything, because she pecks him back and will chase him away. Unfortunately, I discovered that the female hurt her leg and can't walk now, so I separated the newbie to avoid him trying to mount her. I didn't want to separate the female alone, I'm afraid it might make the younger male annoy the older even more, since the female seemed to be the peacekeeper here.
Now that he is separated, he is crowing NONSTOP. And I mean, he goes to sleep crowing around 1 am and wakes up crowing at 5 am, and the crow is constant with minute intervals. He tires himself out, eats, drinks and then continues. It's insane. My brain is already filtering it out, but my husband is quickly losing sleep and really threatening quail soup here.
We've tried covering the cage, which only works for maybe 20 minutes before he just continues. If he hears any movement in the house, he just goes off. He only really shuts up if I pick him up out of the cage and pet him actively, that's the only way my husband gets an extra hour's sanity. I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do about this. I know our female:male ratio is crap, but for now this is all we got. Why is he crowing SO actively now, is it just the hormones at this point, or light, sound, how do I appease this devil? Any ideas on what we can do?
Here's a long one to set the scene: we have a pair of quail - male (3 y/o) and female (2 y/o) that don't mate (the male is silly and prefers inanimate objects
). The female broke her wing this summer and stopped laying since. We were hoping to add females to the ranks, but unfortunately the incubations weren't successful, and we only hatched one bird, which we missexed at first and it turned out to be male, hatched 11/11.We tried introducing him to the flock as a chick, but the female would try to peck off his feet and eyes, so we stopped.
Then we tried again around week 3, and the female was way more amiable, but would still peck his side on the way around the cage. He would overreact, panic and run around crazy, and spent a lot of time hiding on the roof of a hideyhole, where others don't go. However, in about a week they got more used to each other and it leveled out, they were navigating around each other more. If they look too stressed out, we separate for a night. During this time, his crow and mating interest settled in.He chases around the other male and regularly tries to mount him. The other male is really calm and ignores it, but I can see he is starting to be stressed out. Newbie crowed a lot, but it seemed a somewhat reasonable amount compared to the older male's puberty back in the day. He also has minimal interest in the female, avoids her more than anything, because she pecks him back and will chase him away. Unfortunately, I discovered that the female hurt her leg and can't walk now, so I separated the newbie to avoid him trying to mount her. I didn't want to separate the female alone, I'm afraid it might make the younger male annoy the older even more, since the female seemed to be the peacekeeper here.
Now that he is separated, he is crowing NONSTOP. And I mean, he goes to sleep crowing around 1 am and wakes up crowing at 5 am, and the crow is constant with minute intervals. He tires himself out, eats, drinks and then continues. It's insane. My brain is already filtering it out, but my husband is quickly losing sleep and really threatening quail soup here.
We've tried covering the cage, which only works for maybe 20 minutes before he just continues. If he hears any movement in the house, he just goes off. He only really shuts up if I pick him up out of the cage and pet him actively, that's the only way my husband gets an extra hour's sanity.
I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do about this. I know our female:male ratio is crap, but for now this is all we got. Why is he crowing SO actively now, is it just the hormones at this point, or light, sound, how do I appease this devil? Any ideas on what we can do?
