Strange quail butt injury

[99Quail]

I have a couple of female golden coturnix quails in the same cage with 6 brown ones, and they are of the same age out of the same batch of hatching. They are about 5-6 weeks of age. Today, I came home and thought one of the golden ones looked funny, and it took me a little while to figure out it is because all the feathers at the tail are gone, and the tip part of the butt is gone also, with fresh blood and possibly some inside coming out. It looks as if someone hacked off half of the butt, and the body length became much shorter (therefore looked strange when I first looked at her without paying attention to her butt). I do not see any other injuries on her. It was really saddening to see it. I moved her to a hospital cage for now, and am not sure if she will make it.

I am just wondering if others see similar kind of injury on quails before? Most injuries I have seen due to fights are usually on head or neck area, and I never see such severe injury on the butt. I know quails have gland on the butt, can they target these gland at this age? The quails are in a well built cage, and there is no way for predators to get hold of them. Thanks in advance.

 

[TwoCrows]

Quail can be brutal on each other and they will attack what ever part is the easiest to get at, if they are after another. Keep this one separated until she heals. If in the future, this bird does not get along with this group, you can try figuring out which ones will mix in with her and keep the two groups separate. Too many females in one cage is asking for trouble.

 

[yallapilko]

Yes got to agree! It will more than likely be one of the others.And keeping two types together may be an issue.
Generally they peck when stressed for any reason such as space, fighting over teritory (feeding areas), .
I would say, take the bully bird out too, and let it simmer down for a few days. You'll need to observe them and work out which bird is doing the damage.
Good luck!

 

[99Quail]

Twocrowsranch and yallapilko,thank you both for your advises. From my limited time and experience keeping quails (less than 3 months), I totally agree with you that quails are a lot more violent and aggressive than they appears to be. I had two male quails went totally blind due to male fights, one female with one eye blind, and several females with head/neck injuries. So far all the injuries that I personally observed are either from males to females or from males to males, and I have been culling males to keep things under control. Before this last incident, I have two males with 6-7 females in each of the two cages I have (reduced from half males half females at hatching), and found things are still very violent in the cages. After this incident, I removed one male from each cage, therefore having only 1 male for 6-7 females in each cage, and found they are in much improved peace now. This might be an issue down the road when I want to hatch fertile eggs, but at least for now, I do not have to constantly worry about them, and keep on seeing bad things happening. Is it a bad idea to have more than one male in each cage?

The injured quail survived, but has been very low in energy and can only walk slowly with some limping. After some healing, I put her back with the rest of the quails after removing one male, and others seem to leave her alone. She looks really strange though as she is probably a little more than half the length of the others. I hope she will fully recover some day.