Seperating males and females after hatching.

[Winston90]

Hello!

Have had chinese painted quail for about a year now and have hatched a few chicks using an incubator. Recently I didn't follow my usual protocol of removing eggs when I see them and left an egg in for a couple of days. My older female (I have 2 females one older and one juvenile and a male in the hutch in question) surprisingly began sitting on the egg so I left it in out of curiosity to see whether she would continue and it would hatch. She lay a couple more - 8 in total and continued to sit on them with the male taking turns. So skip a few days and checked in on them last night and all 8 had hatched all looking very healthy and happy.

Left them for the night and came back today, all 8 are still alive and chirping however the male and juvenile female seem to be if anything a little excitable and are following they're standard path which happens to mean running over the chicks quite a bit and upsetting the female - who's started croaking a bit in upset/disgust.

I was just wondering whether it was best to move the male and juvenile female into a spare hutch till the chicks are older, put a divider in which would lower the space available to both parties or just leave all the quail in together and hope for the best?

Any help would be much appreciated

 

[veggiecanner]

I would. no reason to take a chance on loosing the chicks.

 

[GrandmaBird]

If the male and second female are running over the chicks I would place the adult birds into a new enclosure for the chicks safety. Be sure you are giving the chicks tiny bits of feed, sometimes running the adult food in the blender can help it should be like corn meal. Congratulations on getting this female to hatch that is really good.
I am a believer of single pairs and so if you decide to keep any or all of the chicks at 8-10 weeks of age you should pair them up in their own enclosures. Or sell them in pairs only.
I just bought a female from a "breeder" and did not think to see the way she was raising them and the female died within 3 days. I then found out from the breeder that she kept them in aviaries with other birds...but not in pairs so this little bird was almost featherless from over breeding. Poor thing. She also kept them in a inside room with out air conditioning so when I brought her home to my nice clean air conditioned home she might have been colder then regular or even just did not have the strength to survive the shock of being caught a couple times and moved. anyway.. this just furthers my beliefs in pairs only.

Congratulations on your hatch!

 

[Winston90]

Thanks for your replies! Have seperated them now and the chicks are doing well, female seems much more relaxed now nothings bothering her brood.