Rant about Blood Thirsty Quail

[PatientType]

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.

 

[le_bwah]

Really, really sounds like a density/environment issue tbh. Yeah, adding/moving birds shakes things up, but the harm is mitigated if they have enough space to flat-out run and enough low cover to duck away under.

I've been raising quail at low density for almost 8 years. Biggest takeaway for me is males = conflict, but they vary so much temperament-wise bird to bird that it's still worth trying. Sorry your quail got hurt.

 

[Nabiki]

I would never add youngsters to an established pen. Always wait until they're adult sized.

I don't have much in the way of aggression issues, but I think that's due to two things. 1) I cull aggressive birds. They don't get bred. 2) My birds have a lot of space. I don't think there is such a thing as too much space. They have about 2 square feet per bird and plenty of hiding places.

 

[catesquire]

I would cull your most aggressive birds in any generation (and absolutely cull any actively drawing blood), and honestly consider getting some new blood in the flock to speed the process up. The over-aggression should clear in a few generations with selective breeding. Sounds like whoever you got eggs from originally wasn't breeding for temperament. These little floofs CAN be vicious but that definitely shouldn't be a normal or widespread trait in your flock.

 

[Goosebaby]

I’m sorry for your troubles, others have already addressed the most common issues, “space, abnormal sex ratios, not enough hides,” so I won’t bother with those.

I’m new to quail myself so my advice isn’t worth much, especially as my experience so far has been mostly different than yours, though I have had a few incidences of absolute brutality in my flock. I’ve been spending a lot of time observing flock dynamics so some of this might be worth considering.


My flock were supposed to be sexed, a mixed color flock of 8 females to 2 males. What arrived were 4 males to 6 females, all Pharoah except 1 Andalusian. Then one of the females died and I was left with 5 girls only.

I had to separate two extra males, not because of them excessively breeding the females and attacking each other but because I had two large females trying to kill two of the males, they decided they didn’t like the male Andalusian and the spiciest Pharoah and that resulted in the girls, not the males, nearly scalping the Andalusian and spicy boy. They were bloodied pretty badly.

The girls approved of the biggest roo and for unknown reasons the smallest roo, both of them had/have very passive personalities compared to the other two so maybe that has something to do with it.
Unfortunately my biggest roo escaped and now only the smallest roo (Thistle) is in with the girls, he’s easily dwarfed by the two biggest girls but all five seem to love their tiny man.

Aggressive males can either dominate or be expelled by the flock.
The flock can also target an individual because they look very different than them.
My guess is it’s best to heavily mix colors or not at all.

The two other males are in their own bachelor quarters and get along just fine with each other. Any time I’ve tried to swap either of them with Thistle has ended with one of the big girls (Bergamot) immediately trying to kill them.

All birds are individuals, some will like some but not others.


All of my quail just ceased laying for the season, their hormones shifted and everyone started molting. Bergamot flipped her shizzles and started attacking the other females. I separated her for a day, switched everything around, then reintroduced her. Nothing changed, her aggression towards the other females persisted.
I separated her for two more days then reintroduced her without changing anything but instead I tied a string very loosely around her neck.
My idea was to give her something else to focus on, the string. It was a desperate final attempt to redirect her behavior because culling her meant I would only have 4 females left in the main flock. The string caused her to panic every few seconds when she caught sight of it, she still showed some aggression towards the others but the terror of the string distracted her from them much of the time.
After two days she simultaneously managed to slip the string off her neck and got over whatever her rage was about and made peace again with the flock. I also introduced a larger sand bath around that time which has made everyone happier. Bergamot has been behaving herself since.

Hormonal changes can affect behavior.
Enrichment can mitigate aggression.
Redirecting aggressive behavior with the string of shame might work?


Earlier this summer I had three more quail hatch, two Andalusians and a Pharaoh. I have one confirmed female, one confirmed male, and one whose sex is ambiguous but who I’m thinking could be a female. All three’s hormones shifted at the start of fall, the male’s behavior hasn’t altered much but the friendliest female became the most skittish and the skittish female is now the friendliest of the girls. The most skittish girl became moderately hostile towards the male for awhile until the other female attacked her, since then they still have some small occasional issues caused by the skittish girl panicking everyone but are mostly tolerant and peaceful.

Sometimes they just need to sort their own s*&$ out, it’s fine as long as they don’t get too violent.

 

[Susan Skylark]

I’ve actually had to separate a two week old chick for aggression (shipped eggs). Of my first 17 birds, I eventually culled 12 for temperament. I’ve only been raising quail for a year and a half but it is amazing how much of a difference a no tolerance for aggressive or mean birds in the breeding flock makes. I ordered some expensive eggs this spring and kept one, the rest were nuts or evil (hatched over a dozen). It is hard, it is always the nicest, biggest, prettiest birds that turn nasty, but it has made a huge difference. It also seems to be contagious, I had a pen of six and kept pulling the mean bird only to have a formerly bullied bird become the new meanie, I ended up culling the whole pen. I switched to group housing and pulled anything that caused problems, male or female. I used to have an awful time introducing new birds or switching up pens, now I can just toss the four week old chicks in (in a group of 3 or more otherwise the males go nuts!) and they do just fine. I can pull a male and some specific hens for a breeding trial and then toss them back in after a month with no issues. It takes some time and observation and a willingness to cull favorites but it can be done. Sorry for your trouble, but they aren’t all evil!