Previously in the wrong place

[gwboolean]

I have a pair of button quail hens as pets. They live in my office. They were really cool...... until they started laying eggs.

At first it was fun and we found many things to make out of these delicious eggs. However, we noticed that the two hens were getting rather bitchy and mean (who would have thought that such small birds could turn into such an AH? And we were getting weary of dealing with the egg laying prowess of these little birds. By the way, it takes nearly 45 of their eggs to make an omelette.

Anyway, all they do now is sit on the nests with dummy eggs I replaced theirs with. Whenever they come out all I hear is creaching and crapping of really, really really big turds.

I am to the point where I am considering just taking theirs nests away and see what will happen.

Can anyone tell me what will happen when I do this? I just want this madness!

 

[Kale the Quail]

My birds have never gone broody and they just sleep wherever they want so I've never given them nests. I think yours should be fine without them.

 

[gwboolean]

My birds have never gone broody and they just sleep wherever they want so I've never given them nests. I think yours should be fine without them.

Cool. Tomorrow is the big day! Not quite ready to face it yet.

One thing I learned from this. I will never, ever stroke one of those girls ever again. Bad move. That's what did a lot to cause the problem in the first place.

But then had there been a rooster there I would have ended up in the same place. And instead of them bitching at me it would have been at him. I need to think about that.

 

[Nabiki]

They'll still lay eggs. You just need to remove them daily.

 

[gwboolean]

Well, I think everything will be ok. One of them is still feeling pretty lost, but I think they will be over it in a couple of days. Now the question becomes how long before they start laying eggs again?

 

[Nabiki]

They'll probably start laying again pretty soon unless they don't have enough light.

 

[gwboolean]

I thought about doing that. But a little hard to do for pets that live in my office. They are like some trees. They need a certain number of hours of light a day to kick in the hormones.

 

[Quailobsessed]

Two females will naturally fight if there's eggs and nests involved. If you want them to live together peacefully, and aren't interested in breeding, I would suggest removing eggs and nests.

 

[gwboolean]

You can bet on that. Both of those little girls were pretty fierce. One of them even took me on a time or two. Did just what you suggested two days ago. It took awhile, but they are both pretty much back to normal and they are keeping close company again. Life is peaceful once again without having the two harpies creeching at everything and everyone because they are in a bad temper.

I have to say that it really does work to let them sit on the eggs a couple of weeks (putting up with their really bad attitude), but neither of them are even thinking about laying now. I am hoping that this will last until spring. And when they start laying again I might consider a rooster and see if that keeps everyone a little happier.