Dealing with homicidal coturnix quail

[Amina]

Thanks, that's some really good insight! I know with my chickens, my hens seem to like my rooster, but once he's mated with them a couple of times that day, they get tired of it. They won't really run from him when he does his dance, but will back away just momentarily. That's interesting that if a quail hen likes the roo, she will squat as many times as the roo wants to do it. So I guess that means my quail hens definitely don't like the roo! Once the injured male heals up, I wonder if the hens will prefer him to the current male.

I have the quail on 30% protein quail feed, because other folks recommended that it be 28-30% for optimum egg production. I can buy something lower in protein though. So 24% protein is the optimum?

My quail are not easy at all to hold. They keep struggling and flapping and kicking the whole time I hold them. I would imagine it might be this particular line of quail that's like that. With chickens, the difference in friendliness between birds has been like night and day for me, depending on which breed I raised. So I know it's possible for me to raise friendly birds...

All the struggling makes it harder to treat the prolapse, because I can push it in, but then they struggle so violently that it pops back out. Last time I treated them with hemorrhoid cream, I was just really fast at putting them back in the cage as soon as I put the cream on. So fingers crossed that that worked.

Yes, females will squat for the male to mount her and make little cheeping noises, and are happy to do it as many times as he wants to, as long as they like him. They are very patient! If they don't like him they will try and run away, and generally act anxious. Males can be relentless so if you can remove him and see if everything calms down it might be a good idea. The girls should all be fine together - just keep an eye on them. They have great memories and I have changed around my groups from time to time and they seem to remember each other, despite not having seen each other in a year, though they would've still been close enough to hear each other.

A good male will also tidbit food for his girls, rumbling to tell them this is good to eat, and let them eat first of course. Our first male also built nests for his girls to lay in. He's still alive and has always been a sweetheart. We recently had a young boy we wanted to keep but we didn't have any girls for him. He lived on his own for awhile and would start rumbling whenever we gave him treats, tidbitting to his imaginary girlfriends. It was very cute.

A not so nice male isn't as polite!

I know chickens that often lay double yolkers are more prone to prolapse so the same is probably true of quail. I've never had a double yolker from mine or experienced prolapse (touch wood). It may just be that, because they have been bred to be bigger birds, they may experience more problems the longer they live, having been bred to slaughter young and give a good sized 'meal'. Or it could be stress playing a part causing them to release two at the same time, creating bigger eggs etc. My quail are just standard sized and at 2 years of age are all still fit as fiddles and the girls still lay daily, though I've always allowed them a break over winter.

What percentage of protein is in the food you are feeding them? Too high a protein content can cause larger eggs which in turn can cause prolapse. I cannot get gamebird feed where I live in New Zealand so mine get Meatbird Crumble which is 20% protein, with egg or sprouted alfalfa as treats to make up the shortfall. I think most people have their laying quail on 24% protein.

I hope you sort this out as they really are sweet little things. Our kids love them as they are so easy to pick up and hold.

 

[Binki]

I think the 30% protein is the answer as to why two birds have prolapse, especially so young. That high in protein percentage is great for starter feed but now they should be on layer feed which I'm hoping has a lower percentage?

It may also make them eat, poop and stink more!

One hiding place is great, two are better and so on

Hehe "absence makes the heart grow fonder" - keep the male you want right beside the females or better yet in a partition inside of their cage that they can see each other - that's the proper way to introduce quail and the girls may start calling to him with their cricket chirping

It is possible that the breed "Jumbo" has something to do with how aggressive and frantic the quail are, which doesn't mean they can't settle down ^^

I think most breeders would put size over temperament in their attempts at breeding bigger birds so that may have something to do with their tendencies?

Figure out what their favorite treat is and they will pace the cage when they see you

 

[JaeG]

After a quick search 24-28% protein feed is recommended for layers. You should be able to get game bird layer rather than starter which does have higher protein (because they do grow so fast it's crazy). You could mix your higher protein feed with unmediated chick starter so that they were getting less protein, rather than wasting it. Plus give them crushed oyster shell as a supplement.

Quail are unique in their personalities just like chickens. Some are naturally docile, some are wild, and some dislike handling especially if they weren't handled as babies. We have one male who is wild, but our daughter loves him! He's in with a couple of other bachelors. I tried him with some girls and they submitted to him but we're much more highly strung because of how he acted. Raising them from chicks does help to make the friendliest individuals even more friendly. We were lucky that our original boy was, and still is, such a sweetheart. He's friendlier than our original two girls - usually girls are friendlier.

We have some young quail at the moment (7 boys and 4 girls!) and even the ones that don't like to be touched respond to sweet talk. Once your group are feeling more settled hopefully they will start to bond with you. As Binki said food is the way to their hearts (much like chickens)!

I've had a boy scalped horribly. I thought he was a gonna. But they are incredibly tough birds and he healed up just fine. Hopefully your poor boy, and girls will recover fast too.

Do let us know how you get on.

 

[Amina]

I applied preparation H to the prolapsed vents, and the hens no longer have prolapse. Yay!

As far as the injuries go, I divided the quail in half so that 1 male and 4 females were in one cage, and 4 females were in another.

When the injured male looked pretty healed up, I decided I was going to clean out the cage of the 4 females and combine them with that male. I put those 4 females in his cage with him, and made it dark to try to keep them all calm while I was cleaning out the bigger cage. I checked on them several times as I cleaned, to make sure they weren't pecking each other. So far so good. Then I went to put them all in the now cleaned cage, and I discovered that one hen no longer had the use of her leg. She was hobbling around, using her wings for balance and pretty much dragging her leg along. I checked out the injured leg, but couldn't find a break or any other injury, and she didn't really react to my poking and prodding. So I'm mystified about what is wrong with her. She is now in the cage with the other injured (scalped) female, who is almost healed at this point.

 

[DK newbie]

****, that's unlucky My dad once put a chicken hen in a cage that already housed a suspected egg eater twice her size and two other small hens that flew out of the hen yard and ate too many of my mothers flowers. Within two hours the new hen was unable to walk - apparently both legs were affected. She promptly lost her head though, so we never really confirmed what was wrong with her. We assumed her legs were broken.

 

[Binki]

Oh no :/ is it possible that it's dislocated at the hip from getting it stuck in cage bars or something?

 

[Amina]

I don't see how that would be possible for her to get stuck in bars. The "cage" I was keeping the injured male in (and had these girls in with him for a few minutes) was a big plastic bin with netting on top. There aren't bars to get a leg stuck in. Maybe something got dislocated another way, though.

She still can't walk normally, but she's doing better... she's got the injured leg more underneath her rather than dragging along, and she's no longer using her wings for balance. She does kindof hop along, still. But it's an improvement, so I'm hopeful that she will heal.

 

[JaeG]

They are amazingly tough birds. She may have boinked upwards and hit her head the wrong way perhaps, causing a bit of neurological damage. Hopefully she'll make a good recovery.

 

[Amina]

They seem so fragile to me, since they keep injuring themselves. But they have healed amazingly well so far.

The scalped female is healed up now and is back in with the group. So far so good. Now I'm just waiting to see what happens with the hen with the leg injury...

 

[Binki]

Here's hoping

And yes so tough - I had two scalped males from sudden aggression in a group of growing males and when I removed them, they started popcorning around, the quail happy dance, bloody heads and all!!