Skankiewicz
Chirping
Hi quail friends!
We have been having a tough time with our quail here in Phoenix recently.
First was the heat 110+ for 2 months decimated our little flock and replacement babies- we lost probably 15 birds total.
Now that is cooler we got the incubator out and hatched 9 eggs! One chick died from something genetic but the others thrived until feathered out.
We followed the advice of "slightly rednecked" on YouTube and put them out at 2.5-3 weeks old so our older ones Ida,Bob,and Kevin wouldn't see them as a threat. And at first it was fine. We put them in the coop at night to protect from supposed predators.
The first night went fine. The second evening I came out to find the oldest chick dead in the external bird cage Ida likes to lay eggs in and Kevin being all territorial about it. So we butchered Kevin and rearranged the aviary.
We put everyone back in the coop thinking the aggressive Kevin was gone- they should be fine.The second night of this we woke to 3 of them killed in the coop. The next day one went just missing.
Now we are down to 3, 2 males and a female.That night we put just the babies in the coop and left the adults out. A night went by then we found one of the males dead in the coop. So we gave up on locking anyone in anything. This morning the female was dead outside the coop.
All of the injuries endured were head injuries with eyes removed. Only a few had evisceration wounds. I assumed this was concurrent with quail vs quail wounds.
Now our questions:
1. Is releasing feathered out 2.5-3 week old quails the problem?
2. Is there a better way to integrate them?
3. Is another predator part of this or did we just have an aggressive hatch?
4. We have 2 incubators ready to hatch out soon. Should we just butcher this lot and start over before putting the new babies in?
Thanks for the advice!
The Kankiewicz Family
We have up on cooping them at night
We have been having a tough time with our quail here in Phoenix recently.
First was the heat 110+ for 2 months decimated our little flock and replacement babies- we lost probably 15 birds total.
Now that is cooler we got the incubator out and hatched 9 eggs! One chick died from something genetic but the others thrived until feathered out.
We followed the advice of "slightly rednecked" on YouTube and put them out at 2.5-3 weeks old so our older ones Ida,Bob,and Kevin wouldn't see them as a threat. And at first it was fine. We put them in the coop at night to protect from supposed predators.
The first night went fine. The second evening I came out to find the oldest chick dead in the external bird cage Ida likes to lay eggs in and Kevin being all territorial about it. So we butchered Kevin and rearranged the aviary.
We put everyone back in the coop thinking the aggressive Kevin was gone- they should be fine.The second night of this we woke to 3 of them killed in the coop. The next day one went just missing.
Now we are down to 3, 2 males and a female.That night we put just the babies in the coop and left the adults out. A night went by then we found one of the males dead in the coop. So we gave up on locking anyone in anything. This morning the female was dead outside the coop.
All of the injuries endured were head injuries with eyes removed. Only a few had evisceration wounds. I assumed this was concurrent with quail vs quail wounds.
Now our questions:
1. Is releasing feathered out 2.5-3 week old quails the problem?
2. Is there a better way to integrate them?
3. Is another predator part of this or did we just have an aggressive hatch?
4. We have 2 incubators ready to hatch out soon. Should we just butcher this lot and start over before putting the new babies in?
Thanks for the advice!
The Kankiewicz Family
We have up on cooping them at night
