Serial head bonker.. any tips?

[sphanges]

I have a young female coturnix. When I got her I put her in a pen with her sister, a male and an older female. I saw the older female chasing her and blood on her head. Removed the older female (thought she was being pecked) and everyone was fine. She started laying a few weeks ago and I've hatched a few of her eggs so all was good.

Since then I rearranged the pens and put her and her sister in another pen with birds they have lived next to for quite some time (different male). She became bloody almost immediately and I realised she is headbonking *all* the time. The other quail are leaving her alone so it just seems like she gets too stressed out with multiple birds in a cage. When she is on her own she does not bonk at all.

I have quite a few quail and limited cage space so I can't keep her alone forever. I don't have an aviary to put her in. I tried moving her whole group into a plastic mesh cage instead of wire and she still bled. I've covered the cage and put hidey holes in. Nothing helps. My cage height is around about 12 inches so she can't get up a lot of speed but she does it repeatedly which causes the bleeding. Her wings are clipped but that hasn't helped.

00I have had birds that bonk before and even one that died from an unfortunate headbonk below a solid ceiling, but never one that wouldn't stop doing it .

Any one experienced this? Any tips?

 

[TwoCrows]

You can try putting in some of that mattress padding on the ceiling. The kind that is thick and ripply. If you attached it to the ceiling, she really couldn't boink her head as easily. Try putting in some natural branches from a tree. Prop them up in the corner so that the limbs and thick leaves give a lot of cover from the ceiling to the floor. She may see these as comfort and security and feel less fear.

 

[laseterlass]

You can also add a sheet of fabric a few inches off the ceiling to stop her before she hits the hard roof. Mine are in a fabric greenhouse.