PatientType
Chirping
- Jun 28, 2025
- 33
- 46
- 59
Before I got Coturnix quail, I thought quail were lovely, shy, harmless little birds. With a year of quail husbandry under my belt, I know better. Quail are vicious, mean, heartless, and stupid creatures.
A good number of the quail I've processed for meat met their end because they'd been savaged by other quail - often quail that they grew up with from hatching. In one year, I've had 4 quail that were blinded in one eye. Ten more had their heads pecked bloody, sometimes with dangling pieces of scalp.
Some of this carnage has been to be contention between males. Even with two males & eight hens in a pen, one of the males decided that that was one too many. But hens can do it, doo.
I had one hen that hunted baby quail. I added a half dozen 3 week-old quail to a pen with older hens. In spite of a dozen YouTube videos assuring viewers that newly added prepubescent quail are ignored an established flock, one of the adult hens hunted the young quail with murder in her heart. She bloodied three of them as they tried to flee or cower under watering cups.
This morning, a smaller-than-average hen that has a limp due to an imperfectly healed brooding box infection was badly injured. Quail seem to gang up on any pen mates that appear weaker. already injured, or vulnerable.
I've already followed the typical recommendations proscribed on YouTube & poultry sites. The quail are never without food or water. They don't have nesting areas that might encourage territoriality. They don't have too much space ... or too little. I no longer move quail from one cage & flock to another - I don't even add new, adult males into an all-female covey. And, no, none of the "ways to add quail to an existing flock" strategies have worked.
My conclusion is that, while Coturnix quail are quiet, lay lots of eggs, and are delicious eating (according to my non-vegetarian spouse), quail are unpredictable, violent creatures with murderous impulses that treat each other miserably.
I'll continue to grow these monsters for eggs. But I no longer think of them as timid, sweet-looking little birds. I think of them as sharp-beaked sociopaths.
A good number of the quail I've processed for meat met their end because they'd been savaged by other quail - often quail that they grew up with from hatching. In one year, I've had 4 quail that were blinded in one eye. Ten more had their heads pecked bloody, sometimes with dangling pieces of scalp.
Some of this carnage has been to be contention between males. Even with two males & eight hens in a pen, one of the males decided that that was one too many. But hens can do it, doo.
I had one hen that hunted baby quail. I added a half dozen 3 week-old quail to a pen with older hens. In spite of a dozen YouTube videos assuring viewers that newly added prepubescent quail are ignored an established flock, one of the adult hens hunted the young quail with murder in her heart. She bloodied three of them as they tried to flee or cower under watering cups.
This morning, a smaller-than-average hen that has a limp due to an imperfectly healed brooding box infection was badly injured. Quail seem to gang up on any pen mates that appear weaker. already injured, or vulnerable.
I've already followed the typical recommendations proscribed on YouTube & poultry sites. The quail are never without food or water. They don't have nesting areas that might encourage territoriality. They don't have too much space ... or too little. I no longer move quail from one cage & flock to another - I don't even add new, adult males into an all-female covey. And, no, none of the "ways to add quail to an existing flock" strategies have worked.
My conclusion is that, while Coturnix quail are quiet, lay lots of eggs, and are delicious eating (according to my non-vegetarian spouse), quail are unpredictable, violent creatures with murderous impulses that treat each other miserably.
I'll continue to grow these monsters for eggs. But I no longer think of them as timid, sweet-looking little birds. I think of them as sharp-beaked sociopaths.
