quail stopped laying abruptly

[samsrib]

Hoping someone has come accross this. I have 4 individual quail pens all side by side in a row. Each pen has 1 male and 4 female. I have been getting almost an egg from each hen every day. Went out to gather eggs about 6 days ago, and in one of my pens, there were no eggs. And there havent been ANY eggs from that pen, since. All my other hens in the other pens are laying just fine. It is just this one pen that they stopped laying. All are in good health, eating, drinking and behaving normally. Any idea why this would happen?
thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[Robo]

What kind of quail? Oh, and they could be going through a molt... So they have artificial lighting?

 

[shelleyd2008]

What kind of pens (wire size, etc). I would think it was a problem more of something getting the eggs before you rather than ALL the hens quitting at once.

 

[JJMR794]

You May Have An Egg Eater In There?

 

[samsrib]

The pens are wire. It is the small squares. I think 1/4 inch. The pens are something like 3 ft. by 1 1/2 ft. There is a nesting box in each pen. There are three levels or rows of pens. 4 pens per row. The bottom pen is one long pen for all my meat quail. The pen that has stopped laying is the middle row, 2nd from the end. They show no signs of molting. With the pen being in the middle row there is no way critters can get to it to steal the eggs, let alone reach inside to take an egg out. There are no gaps or holes. I had light on them, but took the light off some time ago since the days are warming and staying lighter longer. The other pens continued to lay normally.
What is strange is that none of the quail in any of the other pens have stopped laying. They are all full speed ahead. I was wondering if one of the hens weas eating the eggs but there is NO remnant of eggs or egg shells at all.
They are coturnix, brown and golden.

 

[Robo]

That too, are they getting less light?

 

[samsrib]

They have the same amount of light as the other 3 pens that are still laying well. Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Wondering how to determine which one if any are eating the eggs.

 

[Rainwolf]

I find that the egg eaters have dirty chins...

 

[DLS]

quail DO NOT LIKE CHANGE,, of any kind. think of what might have changed. heat? light? water? feed? on and on . I had a DEAD PEN last summer it was a egg eater. I put an egg in the pen. It was gone!Then I knew that they were eating. so I took a bird(isolated) out every day untill eggs started to show. 3rd day I had her...

 

[Rainwolf]

Quote:
Thats a good way to get the egg eater when theres no signs.