What age can young male be put with desperate adult female

[Jaquilee]

Hi to anyone who can advise me
I’ve a year old hen whose mate died suddenly a few months ago. I couldn’t replace him so hatched some eggs for a replacement. My boys are now 8 weeks old. Are they old enough yet for me to introduce one of them to an older hen who really needs mating? Also I have a blue faced male and one with a white mask... would that make any difference to her?
Thanks for any advice

 

[Shadrach]

Hi to anyone who can advise me
I’ve a year old hen whose mate died suddenly a few months ago. I couldn’t replace him so hatched some eggs for a replacement. My boys are now 8 weeks old. Are they old enough yet for me to introduce one of them to an older hen who really needs mating? Also I have a blue faced male and one with a white mask... would that make any difference to her?
Thanks for any advice

Hello Jaquilee.
Welcome to BYC.
You can in theory introduce a cockerel to other flock members at any age. Mother hens introduce their offspring to their flock at various ages depending on the nature of the flock, their position in the flock hierarchy and the keeping and hatching conditions.
Introducing an eight week old cockerel to a single hen would I think give rise to a few problems. There is a chance that at eight weeks old the hen may adopt the cockerel. There is also the chance that she may just attack him and at his age, he will not be able to defend himself.
At eight weeks old the cockerel is not going to mate with the mature hen. I doubt very much whether the hen would entertain him even if he showed an interest.
I think you are looking at at least six months old before there is a chance that the hen would accept him.

 

[Jaquilee]

Hello Jaquilee.
Welcome to BYC.
You can in theory introduce a cockerel to other flock members at any age. Mother hens introduce their offspring to their flock at various ages depending on the nature of the flock, their position in the flock hierarchy and the keeping and hatching conditions.
Introducing an eight week old cockerel to a single hen would I think give rise to a few problems. There is a chance that at eight weeks old the hen may adopt the cockerel. There is also the chance that she may just attack him and at his age, he will not be able to defend himself.
At eight weeks old the cockerel is not going to mate with the mature hen. I doubt very much whether the hen would entertain him even if he showed an interest.
I think you are looking at at least six months old before there is a chance that the hen would accept him.

 

[Jaquilee]

Hi Shadrach. Thank you for replying.
Stupidly I forgot to state that I’m talking about Chinese Painted Quail....

 

[Quailobsessed]

Yeah, I picked up on that they were king quail (chinese painted).

I had a 6 week old male that I put with a 6 month old female. They bonded fine. It really depends on individual birds. I agree with what @Shadrach was saying, but it can work in some cases. It's up to you on whether you put them together, but if you do introduce them, you have to watch them closely until either she accepts him, or rejects him. If the female shows signs of aggression, remove the male before he gets hurt. King quails mate for life, so they can be quite fussy on who they pick.

 

[Jaquilee]

Yeah, I picked up on that they were king quail (chinese painted).

I had a 6 week old male that I put with a 6 month old female. They bonded fine. It really depends on individual birds. I agree with what @Shadrach was saying, but it can work in some cases. It's up to you on whether you put them together, but if you do introduce them, you have to watch them closely until either she accepts him, or rejects him. If the female shows signs of aggression, remove the male before he gets hurt. King quails mate for life, so they can be quite fussy on who they pick.

thank you for your reply. I’ve tried putting both males with her at different times for just a short while. She chases them a bit but not aggressively she just appears to want them to do their job - they appear not to know what to do. I’ll try again with the one now crowing and watch them again.
Thanks again for the advice

 

[Jaquilee]

thank you for your reply. I’ve tried putting both males with her at different times for just a short while. She chases them a bit but not aggressively she just appears to want them to do their job - they appear not to know what to do. I’ll try again with the one now crowing and watch them again.
Thanks again for the advice

thank you for your reply. I’ve tried putting both males with her at different times for just a short while. She chases them a bit but not aggressively she just appears to want them to do their job - they appear not to know what to do. I’ll try again with the one now crowing and watch them again.
Thanks again for the advice

 

[Jaquilee]

So today I realised that a white hen amongst my youngsters is in fact a cock. So I tried him in with my older hen.
different story. She’s playing coy with this one. She saw off the other two I tried. But runs away from this one. But he’s the first to do a cock bird dance for her - at least that’s what I think he was doing. So I’ll keep an eye on them and see how they go.

 

[Quailobsessed]

This sounds a bit like an experience I had with king quails.

I had a hen who went broody, but a few days in, her mate died. She stayed on the brood and hatched out seven chicks, but only five made it to adulthood. Once they grew up, I identified two wildtype girls, two silver boys and one cinnamon girl. I wanted to keep some of the girls with their mum to give her company, but I wanted to get mates for the girls.

I really wanted a darth vader mutation, so when I found one for sale I bought it, along with a red breasted hen and a cinnamon pearl hen (they were all about 6 months old).

My original plan was to put the darth vader male with the biggest female (a wildtype) and the two new hens with the silver male chicks. However, I learned that they are fussy and they choose their own mates. I tried putting the darth vader with the hen I chose, but she was terrified of him (maybe because his face is completely black) and he wasn't interested in her at all. I then separated these two. Next I tried to put the silver males with the new females. The cinnamon pearl hen was quite plucked, so I decided to put her with the smaller male, but she tried to attack him, so I separated them. The red breasted hen didn't attack the silver with her, but she didn't show any interest either. I tried swapping the silvers, hoping that the cinnamon pearl didn't attack the larger silver as well, but she did. The red breasted hen didn't attack the smaller male though. So the next thing I tried was to put both silvers with the red breasted hen to see which one she liked more. She attacked the larger one and defended the smaller one, so I removed the larger one. She seemed really happy with the smaller silver male now.

I now had one good pair, two lone males and one aggressive female. I hadn't had a proper look at the chicks' feather patterns because they were always with their mum, but when I got better look at the larger silver, I realised that it was actually a female. I then put her back with her mum and sisters. Now I just had the darth vader male and the aggressive cinnamon pearl hen left. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to put them together. As soon as they were together they immediately bonded. The breeder I bought those three from had kept them, with a bunch more, all together in the bottom of an aviary, so those two had probably already bonded then.

It all worked out in the end, leaving all of them happy, but I learned a valuable lesson. Sorry about the long post, I just wanted to share this experience.

 

[Jaquilee]

This sounds a bit like an experience I had with king quails.

I had a hen who went broody, but a few days in, her mate died. She stayed on the brood and hatched out seven chicks, but only five made it to adulthood. Once they grew up, I identified two wildtype girls, two silver boys and one cinnamon girl. I wanted to keep some of the girls with their mum to give her company, but I wanted to get mates for the girls.

I really wanted a darth vader mutation, so when I found one for sale I bought it, along with a red breasted hen and a cinnamon pearl hen (they were all about 6 months old).

My original plan was to put the darth vader male with the biggest female (a wildtype) and the two new hens with the silver male chicks. However, I learned that they are fussy and they choose their own mates. I tried putting the darth vader with the hen I chose, but she was terrified of him (maybe because his face is completely black) and he wasn't interested in her at all. I then separated these two. Next I tried to put the silver males with the new females. The cinnamon pearl hen was quite plucked, so I decided to put her with the smaller male, but she tried to attack him, so I separated them. The red breasted hen didn't attack the silver with her, but she didn't show any interest either. I tried swapping the silvers, hoping that the cinnamon pearl didn't attack the larger silver as well, but she did. The red breasted hen didn't attack the smaller male though. So the next thing I tried was to put both silvers with the red breasted hen to see which one she liked more. She attacked the larger one and defended the smaller one, so I removed the larger one. She seemed really happy with the smaller silver male now.

I now had one good pair, two lone males and one aggressive female. I hadn't had a proper look at the chicks' feather patterns because they were always with their mum, but when I got better look at the larger silver, I realised that it was actually a female. I then put her back with her mum and sisters. Now I just had the darth vader male and the aggressive cinnamon pearl hen left. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to put them together. As soon as they were together they immediately bonded. The breeder I bought those three from had kept them, with a bunch more, all together in the bottom of an aviary, so those two had probably already bonded then.

It all worked out in the end, leaving all of them happy, but I learned a valuable lesson. Sorry about the long post, I just wanted to share this experience.

Thank you for that. Guess they know what they like lol. Just hope I’ve got it right now as you did in the end. My other pairs I’ve put together as pairs if the same colour and they’ve all settled immediately. Only slight nagging doubt is that these eggs were bought in and I wonder from a bloodline perspective if it would be healthier to put different colours together in case same are related? What do you think? Although they’ll probably not settle now! Thanks again for your reply.