Rough Day as a quail owner. 😥

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

Here is my boy with his blu-kote beret. He's back in with hens and everything seems to be ok. He is currently the only boy in with 6 hens.
He hasn't seemed that interesting in mating though.

 

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

We came home from a day trip today and found that one cage had a male that was completely scalped by another male.... a 2nd cage that a male had it's eyes pecked out by another male.... and then as we tried to sort things out one male flew away and we never found him.

They turned 6 weeks today and we were planning on separating the extra males out tomorrow.

We culled the one with his eyes pecked out but we're hoping to save the scalped one. (Because he's my favorite). So ultimately we lost 2 of our "extra" males.

I am really worried that the 2 males left (in seperate cages -each with at least 4 hens) will be aggressive to my hens tonight.

Are they always that aggressive? These are our first quail.

What kind of quail are they? From what I hear that's slightly unusual aggression for Coturnix (if thats what you have). But I don't know about other breeds. A 1:4 (male:female) ratio should be great now and you probably don't have to worry about anymore aggression. I keep 1:5 though just to stay on the safe side and keep my hens from getting any possible bald heads.

 

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

Here is my boy with his blu-kote beret. He's back in with hens and everything seems to be ok. He is currently the only boy in with 6 hens.
He hasn't seemed that interesting in mating though. View attachment 2592408

Oh how pretty!! Im so glad it worked out!!

 

[Urbanhomestead_ut]

What kind of quail are they? From what I hear that's slightly unusual aggression for Coturnix (if thats what you have). But I don't know about other breeds. A 1:4 (male:female) ratio should be great now and you probably don't have to worry about anymore aggression. I keep 1:5 though just to stay on the safe side and keep my hens from getting any possible bald heads.

They are coturnix and it wasn't just 1 cage... 2 of my cages were aggressive the same day - one cage had a male scalped (the one above) and one got his eyes pecked out in a different cage (we culled him).
There were just too many males per cage. We have gone to 1 male per cage now.

 

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

They are coturnix and it wasn't just 1 cage... 2 of my cages were aggressive the same day - one cage had a male scalped (the one above) and one got his eyes pecked out in a different cage (we culled him).
There were just too many males per cage. We have gone to 1 male per cage now.

Oh im sorry , that sounds like you fixed the problem though!

 

[Dinoroar]

Glad he made it! I’ve definitely been there with my quail when I was first starting out. Scalping, pecked eyes, the whole lot. The aggression came on with mine overnight while I still had them in their brooder. I thought I had more time to finish their aviary I ended up having the males all in separate pet porters while I scrambled to get it done. Thankfully after I got them out I i their larger space the fighting stopped. I’ve had varying ratios of Roos in there and never had fighting trouble as long as they have a big space.

ETA: I can see why that boy’s a favorite. He’s very pretty.

 

[Nabiki]

Here is my boy with his blu-kote beret. He's back in with hens and everything seems to be ok. He is currently the only boy in with 6 hens.
He hasn't seemed that interesting in mating though. View attachment 2592408

Not tonight, honey. I have a headache.