Quail dieing

[Diggypup]

You may need to restart your covey - it’s unfortunate and I’m sorry that you’re experiencing this.

Might I suggest one of the quickest setups for an aviary is a dog kennel (at least 4’ high), and wrapped in poultry netting.

The ratio is even more unfortunate, but it seems that the hens are stressed and may even be overbred if you start your covey over with those remaining (1:3).

I’m not at all expert on this, but those are my novice suggestions.

Ya i agree i need to restart and i was shooting for a 1:5 ratio but the hatch out was not in my favor
I did put in all the eggs i had left from them and by the time they hatch i will have the new area set up and hopefully it was just a stress issue and not a disease or anything
I have them in my shed in a giant box made of plastic and tarp because it was too cold and windy to put them in a dog kennel but it is 5x4x4

 

[Nabiki]

Has your feed gotten damp at any point? The male to female ratio is what's causing the violence, but the dying sounds like either disease or something in their feed/water. What you're feeding them is fine, but if it's gotten damp, it may be growing something unhealthy in there.

Keep us posted!

 

[Diggypup]

Has your feed gotten damp at any point? The male to female ratio is what's causing the violence, but the dying sounds like either disease or something in their feed/water. What you're feeding them is fine, but if it's gotten damp, it may be growing something unhealthy in there.

Keep us posted!

No i keep the food in the house during winter and when i feed them i change it out 2 times a day to keep it as clean as i can and same with water

 

[Diggypup]

Alright so i found out the issue, i do have 25 birds and about 8 are female and the rest are male.
They are 2 months old and i was rushing to get this new area built before anything like this happened
I did want to send in a bird to get checked but i had already buried them thinking it was just how life is, you lose birds sadly. I haven't lost any more yet but if i do i will definitly send it in.

I was cleaning out the cages and I found this guy

I took everyone out and no one had any blood so he must be who killed my other male
Happy to say no diseases and no mouse issues caused this
With the red heat lamp it's so hard to see anything
I put him, 3 females and his brother in the origional area because they all seemed skinny and sick, i also put him because i had no where else to put him
I put all the other females and males into an area hoping to keep them from catching whatever was going on
The males are all happy and getting along and the females are all gaining weight again
Everyone is doing ok exept the birds in the origional area, the murderer is doing just fine but the females in there and the male are so skinny i think the innocent male is going to die

So i put all my quail back in to the cage like i had them before and i watched them for a few hours and found out this guy is starving everyone! All the males, females and the younger birds
They go to eat and he attacks them! He only lets them have water
Everyone else is perfectly sweet to eachother even when they were put all together during this whole issue
My females were 250g and above, some even over 300g but became to as low as 130g
The females are now back up to almost 200g, noone is laying any eggs yet but i am going to have to remove the problematic bird and it seems that should be the fix for my problem because everyone that is not with him is doing ok and everyone with him are dieing

My guess is the diarrhea was due to only getting to have water, they were too scared to eat and no food makes it hard to lay eggs aswell

The image here is what they are in, it is super crowded but sadly is what i had available to put them in the time i had
I don't think they mind it atall luckily because before this happend they used to lay all in a pile together not because they were cold, it was about 90⁰ actually but most would crowd up in lines or a big circle and just sleep all sprawled out


The center bird in the first image with the missing head feathers is the male i had in with the evil bird

The last image that is red is the origional area the oldest 15 birds were in together in the shed and has the heat lamp but now contains the 3 females i spoke of and the bird second to right is the killer, he is small but evil and the females are way skinnier than they look because they are puffed up
These were my first hatch so the ratio was terrible, i got about 1 male to 1 female
I put all the smaller birds in the box and the bigger birds in the tote
I am going to cull the evil male and wait out the 4 that are skinny to make sure they aren't sick incase this guy wasn't the full problem, i don't want to chance it being a disease and putting them all back into it. The new area should be done in the next week they just gotta hang in there, i hoped to get it done sooner but snow up here is relentless
The area will provide the correct ratio of males to females and a bigger space like they deserve

If anything else comes up i will definitly update on it but if not then this guy was the culprit and now has a whole thread on how horrible he was
Thank you to everyone in this thread for all the help!

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Some males are just naturally horrible, learned that the hard way too when he almost blinded the girls he was with. The smallest amount of females per male is 4, any less can cause the females to suffer from overbreeding and that can cause a number of issues. Offer your girls some calcium supplements too such as egg shells or mixed grit.

 

[Diggypup]

Some males are just naturally horrible, learned that the hard way too when he almost blinded the girls he was with. The smallest amount of females per male is 4, any less can cause the females to suffer from overbreeding and that can cause a number of issues. Offer your girls some calcium supplements too such as egg shells or mixed grit.

I am sorry you had a similar situation, i agree some birds are just born mean it just sucks it had to happen right before i finished the new area, they just hit maturity and are gaining personality aswell. I wanted to have a ratio of 1 to atleast 5 but it is my first hatch out and i can't choose the genders so i let them grow together with intentions on separating them this month. I give my birds apple cider vinegar in their water and buckets full of dirt or sand. They also get a fresh pine tree branch when i can find one and some ground up eggshells in their food.