Suddenly Fighting Among My Quails

[MageofMist]

One of the chicks turned out to be male, though he was getting along fine with his parents and the siblings, then suddenly out of no where they started fighting when they was fine a second ago, the young male attacking his siblings and dad while herding his mother into a corner rather violently. Both him and his father were literally HISSING at one-another, and his dad wanted nothing to do with this violent chick.

I took him out of the cage (after grabbing his siblings a few times as they all look identical, though the others don't crow or food peep. I knew I got the right one when I heard the growl when captured) and put him in the brooder, and now he is constantly crowing.
What confuses me is, the young male has no plumage that would point to him being male, not even red at his vent. I thought maybe he was a confused hen, food peeping and crowing, then suddenly everything just exploded into chaos.

I feel bad for him to be all on his own though, but he was literally attacking everything. Any advice on what I can do with him? I tried separating him for a minute and putting him back in but he imminently returned to fighting when I did.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Are you open to setting up a second group where he can be in a pen with hens of his own? The sudden change may have caught you off guard, but is not all that surprising - sounds like his hormones have kicked in and hit high gear.

 

[MageofMist]

Are you open to setting up a second group where he can be in a pen with hens of his own? The sudden change may have caught you off guard, but is not all that surprising - sounds like his hormones have kicked in and hit high gear.

I was caught quite a bit off guard by this. ^^; Sadly I have no other hens to put him with as the only others are his mother and immature siblings. We do have another cage we can put him in so he has more space once we sort it out in the morning, as it is in the shed right now and it is a bit too dark.

And there's no one in the area selling quails of his specie, King/Button, at the moment either, likely due to the season. So getting new hens to be his buddies will have to wait.

 

[DK newbie]

With my last batch of chicks, I had a hen turn aggressive and attacking its mother when it turned just above 6 weeks old, so there is no guarantee yours is a male just because it's aggressive. I put her in a different cage and caught one of her brothers to keep her company (assuming since it was the mother she was attacking that she'd be most likely to live peacefully with a male). Initially she did attack the male, though not as violently and after a couple of days just with him, she calmed down.

 

[gpop1]

Are you open to setting up a second group where he can be in a pen with hens of his own? The sudden change may have caught you off guard, but is not all that surprising - sounds like his hormones have kicked in and hit high gear.

+1

Female buttons will fight for territory. Males will fight for breeding rights. There not fussed about family and if no females are available then the smallest dude is in trouble. The only answer is more space and more buttons or to sell/trade the youngsters before they get to that age.

 

[MageofMist]

After a day of him sulking all alone, I caved in and put him back in with his family as it was too sad to bear for me. I will keep a close eye on them, but so far things are going well as he went right into snuggle mode instead of going back into fight mode, unlike the last time I attempted this yesterday. So he just needed a little alone time to chill out from the raging hormones I guess.

And he is a male as he does the whirring sound before he crows and food peeps when holding things he likes, such as sprouted seeds I gave him, while I have seen a hen food peep when broody, I never seen a hen king quail do a whirring before they crow. As for his plumage though, I have no idea, he is just a very feminine looking male I guess?

 

[DK newbie]

How old is he now? I've never had a male that had no indication of its sex by 5-6 weeks. But then again, I've only had one batch of blue face chicks (not counting the ones I have now, as they are less than a week old) - usually I don't actually check the color of the vent feathers on my wild colored chicks, I just wait for the bib to show up.. So there could have been some that were late in showing red vent feathers without me noticing. Sounds unusual, but his behavior certainly does sound male.

 

[MageofMist]

How old is he now? I've never had a male that had no indication of its sex by 5-6 weeks. But then again, I've only had one batch of blue face chicks (not counting the ones I have now, as they are less than a week old) - usually I don't actually check the color of the vent feathers on my wild colored chicks, I just wait for the bib to show up.. So there could have been some that were late in showing red vent feathers without me noticing. Sounds unusual, but his behavior certainly does sound male.

He was hatched on 12/18/16, so he should be showing some vent feathers if male by now. The youngsters are all blue-faced, but lack the partial bib or white wing feathers their dad has, barring one who has one teeni white feather on her neck that she had since she was getting her feathers, but has displayed no behaviors of being a male.