Quail egg laying problems

[lomine]

I keep mine at 1/2 square foot per bird with 1 male per 5 females and they lay extremely well and it is extremely rare that there is a fight or a hen with a bare back. With a pen that size I would probably end up putting 20 hens and 4 Cocks in it. I realy don't see why I should get a lot lower fertility of the birds for the sake of adding one cock bird when all that will happen is that the fertility goes up.

I don't see the point in continuing this back and forth. We obviously have different viewpoints and we aren't going to agree on this. But hey, that's the great thing about BYC. You get to learn from lots of others about what works for them and then decide what works best for you and your situation.

 

[poultrymad]

I don't see the point in continuing this back and forth. We obviously have different viewpoints and we aren't going to agree on this. But hey, that's the great thing about BYC. You get to learn from lots of others about what works for them and then decide what works best for you and your situation.

Agreed.

 

[buddhabrahma905]

Thank you all for your input. Just to update you, laying has resumed, but I'm only getting about one egg per day again. I've also decided to move the Coturnix quail outdoors into a converted chicken coop which is much roomier in the hopes that the increased space and quality of life will lead to more eggs. Plus, they were kind of starting to stink up the room they were in

 

[buddhabrahma905]

So to give this thread a bump and to give you all an update, here's whats happened since my last post. One quail was killed by its cage mates and cannibalized, and several others were wounded, so I immediately moved all of the uninjured quail outside to a 4 ft by 4 ft chicken coop. The larger run will be open to them once I've finished some renovations. In the meanwhile, the remaining 5 birds that are recuperating ( a male and 4 females) have the 2 ft by 4 ft cage all to themselves.

 

[Binki]

Yikes... Did you get them off the layer combo feed? Cannibalizing a protein rich corpse could indicate they're not getting enough protein from their food.

That sounds like quite the small space for that amount of full grown quail and then throw in competing males running around terrorizing the place with their developing hormones - I wouldn't imagine there were places to hide so in my opinion it was a problem waiting to happen.

It sounds like you are on track now do you provide sand or anything to dust bathe in? That makes them happy and gets some energy out. I also put grit and seeds in it for them to have something to search for.

I also let them scratch around for their food in a shallow box - all of this scratching and pecking and bathing gives them something to focus on and spend their energy there instead of on each other and all animals love a window to look out of if they're not outside

 

[buddhabrahma905]

Yep they're being fed nothing but a 30% protein gamebird starter feed now, with ground up cat kibbles added in occasionally. They have diatomaceous earth to dust bathe in as well as dust from the bedding. I throw a little bit of their food as well as some lentils and sunflower seeds in the bedding to keep them busy.

 

[Binki]

That's great do the sunflower seeds have the shells? I have black oil sunflower seeds but the quail don't seem like they would be able to open the shell I guess I could crush them then toss some in hmmm

 

[Sill]

Do silver gene females lay? Because the better part of my flock of 15 birds is made up of silver females and I'm still only getting 1 egg every few days. On top of this, I've tried incubating the eggs a few times and I'm not even sure they're fertile despite the fact that I have two silver males in the cage. I have my quail in temperature controlled room in a 4 foot by 2 foot cage and they're being fed gamebird starter mixed with layer crumbles.

You are better off taking one of the males out or splitting the hens between the two in separate cages. Two males will bicker and cause stress, and it doesn't take much to stress them enough that they don't lay. A larger enclosure would help.

Do they have an enticing place to lay their eggs? Though they can lay them anywhere a box of some sort to hide in and feel safe can trigger their need to lay eggs.

Feed them all gamebird starter, layer is too low in protein. Give free access to oystershell so their eggshells are of good quality.

 

[eHuman]

2 males with 13 females are fine you don't have to take one out.

How old are your birds?
What % protein are they getting?
How much light per day are they getting?

 

[buddhabrahma905]

To update any newcomers, I now have 9 (2 males, 7 females) quail in an outdoor 4 ft by 4 ft chicken coop, while my injured quail (a male and 5 females) are in a 2 ft by 4 ft indoor cage. All of them get around 14 hours of light per day and all are fed on a 30% protein gamebird starter feed supplemented with seeds and cat kibble and with access to calcium. My birds range in age from 3-4 months old.