when should I establish quail breeding units?

[JFrench]

Hi My Peeps! Well I so appreciated all the help when I hatched my mix of jumbo coturnix quail over 4 weeks ago!! Thank you all!!! Any-coo... we ended up with 41 beautiful healthy quail with at least 14 of those birds being hens. (As some of the breeds are not feather sexable, I will likely wait another week or so to attempt vent sexing.) Back to my situation...I have a large cage with 4 levels that are 4'x2'. We have water and feed on both sides of each level. The entire top level was devoted to my original mix of standard quail-1 roo and 5 hens. I have since added a solid partition on that level and one other level a couple of days ago, modifying their living space to a 2'x2' area and they are adapting and have continued to lay just fine. My thought is to add more dividers to the rest of the cage to create a total of 8 2'x2' areas. The idea is to establish 8 breeding families, each area with 1 roo and 5 hens. It seems it would allow me to moniter who is laying well, which eggs are generally getting fertilized, those kind of things. HOWEVER, I am not sure on the timing of this, do I do it now before they are laying eggs and they are still getting along? Or do I wait until I know which birds to breed when they finally reach full size? Should I remove dividers and let 10 hens and 2 roos coexist? I am a little concerned that it might get loud, but I don't want to stress out my birds or my sweet husband! I did take 5 hens and 1 roo from the general population and tried to make a family group, but one hen pecked at the eyes of my roo and I had to separate them both and then the remaining 3 hens were too anxious to return to everyone else that I just went ahead and reintroduced them to the general levels, so that attempt did not go well. I do have 6 hens in 2 different rooms and they are getting along on my second shelf, but I do eventually want a roo with them. Hope this extra info helps and whatever thoughts you can share would be most appreciated!

 

[CliftonQuail]

My first hatch, I ended up with 22 birds at the 3 week mark. They were all Jumbo Wild, so easily sexed at 3 weeks. I had 10 hens and 12 roos. I separated the hens at 3 weeks when I moved them into their growout cages and put one roo in with each group of 5. The rest of the roos went into two other growout cages.
Every hatch after that one, I've followed the same practice, but I've only been hatching small batches. If I have more than 5 hens, they get split into even groupings and each group gets a roo. Extra roos are kept until they go into the freezer, or get swapped out with any that are aggressive with the hens.
I had one hatch with a 3/4 roo/hen split. Two of the hens were scalped and died before I could intervene successfully. I pulled the roo out and a few days later, one of the remaining hens was dead, so I figured that it was the remaining hen that was the killer. She ended up going to the freezer with the rest of her hatch mates.
I currently have 3 sets of breeders with a 1/5 ratio and don't seem to have any aggression issues anymore, but it was stressful for a while there.

 

[JFrench]

Thanks CliftonQuail for that insight! I appreciate it very much!

 

[Cool-breeze7]

They are territorial birds. Not always, but often, two males in such close quarters will have conflict. Plus your bloodlines will be a bit fuzzy. 50/50 odds on the male and 1:10 odds on the female for any given egg.

I suppose how important that is depends on what you’re breeding for.

I would encourage you to rethink your standards for their enclosure. People generally recommend 1 sqft/ bird on the hobby level but the birds certainly appreciate more. Keep in mind that’s referencing sqft they can walk around on. Feeders, waters, enrichment aspects etc decrease square footage. If they feel to cramped they are more likely to be stressed and fight.

 

[JFrench]

Thanks Cool-breeze7 for your thoughtful response!

 

[The crazy Poultry hoarder]

To sex the ones you cant feather sex you can press above their vent and if its a boy then foam will come out and if not it's most likely a girl this works best in breeding season you can do it from 6 weeks on some 5 weeks

 

[JFrench]

Yeah....I can hardly wait.... JK! Thanks Poultry hoarder!

 

[The crazy Poultry hoarder]

haha

 

[MrJudeRaw]

They are territorial birds. Not always, but often, two males in such close quarters will have conflict. Plus your bloodlines will be a bit fuzzy. 50/50 odds on the male and 1:10 odds on the female for any given egg.

I suppose how important that is depends on what you’re breeding for.

I would encourage you to rethink your standards for their enclosure. People generally recommend 1 sqft/ bird on the hobby level but the birds certainly appreciate more. Keep in mind that’s referencing sqft they can walk around on. Feeders, waters, enrichment aspects etc decrease square footage. If they feel to cramped they are more likely to be stressed and fight.

a lot of times the territorial nature is expressed when they have more space. it creates low and high value spaces. it also happens when they have not enough space so its definitely a goldilocks situation.