Why please help

[duck mad 2012]

hi all
i have 2 chinise quail (button quail)a breeding paire there only young about 6 months and they have been together since all that time, i went to feed them to day and i have notice the male is looking scruffy on his back his feathers are coming out and hanging out hes also looking a bit thin (but nothing to go mad about, he prob dont look like this to anyone elce coz i no him) when i watched them the female went over peacked him fast and ran off. Why is the female doin this??
Is she bord? or playing? or just nasty?

 

[TwoCrows]

If she is actually ripping feathers out of him, or hurting him otherwise, than she obviously does not like him. She might not be letting him eat much either, hence his growing thin. I would separate these two and find them new mates.

 

[GrandmaBird]

I have to disagree with twocrowsranch. I have a single pair that have been together for almost a year and the female just did the same thing to her mate. I was going to separate them but they never stopped sleeping next to each other and she quite the picking the same day. She never made him bleed just pulled out the feathers. I came to the conclusion that she was stressed, I had done a deep cleaning on the cage the day before. The next day they were mating and everything is back to normal, she is now sitting on 9 eggs so guess she was just being a bi---. Any way I would just watch them and if the male is not bleeding then let them be if she makes him bleed or will not let him fed then you would have to separate them. Good luck

 

[Peacerose]

If you leave them together, put another little bowl of food in the cage and put it at the other end of the cage from the food they have now. The female will either chill or go mad trying to protect both bowls of food. Watch and see what happens. It could be as GrandmaBird says. Also, some people have found that a short seperation of a few days will work as an attitude adjuster. But if she has truly rejected him as a mate, you eventually have to seperate them.

 

[aaabirdman]

I agree with grandmabird I almost had the same situation