Ultimate bachelor, quail edition

[Susan Skylark]

I’m planning to cull an entire pen (mean, bullied, infertile, not laying or laying only soft shelled eggs). I’ve got a nice batch of chicks 4.5 weeks old and almost the size of the adult birds. The male of this pen is a nice bird and just got stuck with all the reject hens and I would like to keep him (6 months old). Is it okay to swap out his ladies for a younger/nicer set or should I keep one of my young males and start anew? My biggest quibble with this pen is that bullying seems to be contagious: I’ll remove troublemakers and somebody else starts. My other two pens are great but I’ve already culled 4 birds for mean/freaky (only 4 hens in the pen at a time too!). I can’t tell if it is because birds are learning bad behavior or my questionable birds end up in this pen (probably both). The male hasn’t been an issue (either as bully or getting picked on) but I’m worried he might carry on tradition and I want this behavior to stop. I’d love to breed for color but temperament is way more important so my flock is turning EB as apparently that’s a chill line! It doesn’t help my 12 year old is adamant we keep every single one! Always a soap opera. Who will win this edition of ultimate bachelor? Stay tuned…

 

[Nabiki]

I would try him. Put them all into a new pen (this can just be the old pen but cleaned and rearranged) at night, and have them all wake up together in the morning.

 

[Susan Skylark]

He was getting rough with the chicks and the ladies in another pen when he was out ‘free ranging’ in the garage, not going to risk it and I have an adorable little Italian I’d like to keep. Of my 4 cull hens 2 were mean, one was laying soft shell eggs (or not at all) the last week, and one was infertile (layed daily but eggs never developed). I thought I’d find some funky anatomy and I did, but not on soft shell hen, rather infertile hen had a cyst the size of a hen egg (looked exactly like a very full cat bladder, not that that helps any normal people!), I’m guessing ovarian, as it just rolled out and I have no idea what it was attached to, but at least that explains the infertile eggs (could never even find a blastoderm and half a dozen incubated eggs never developed, that male otherwise has 90 plus percent fertility). Now I can look forward to a new breeding pen instead of dreading what new drama my problem birds have concocted!