ladyjulian Posted April 12, 2010 Share Posted April 12, 2010 Our six adult quail have been living quite happily together in Chateau Quail for the last ten weeks or so. We bought them as 5 hens & 1 cock, but discovered later that we actually had 4 hens and 2 cocks (a Coturnix & a Texan A&M). No problem up to this weekend. So spring has sprung, and the coturnix cock has suddenly realised he's a boy. And is mating with everything in sight, including the other cock. That was alright, but then yesterday he's *only* after the other cock. I can't work out if he's actually attempting to mate or just fighting. Yesterday evening the Texan had a few head feathers missing - this morning I went out and found him sitting in a corner with a large bloody patch on his head The Coturnix is still after him and he's obviously exhausted. I've segregated the Texan, cleaned his head and put wound powder on. He needs to be separated while he heals up, but would I do better to segregate the Coturnix cock also? And I've heard bad stuff about how aggressive quail can be - do I need to keep these two separate forever, or is there a chance that they'll get on better if reintroduced? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted April 12, 2010 Share Posted April 12, 2010 I don't think they'll ever get on with only 3 girls to share between them I had a trio, 4 girls : 1 cock and 3 boys living together in separate hutches - the boys were ok if they couldn't hear or see the girls, but sometimes had a few problems Mating looks the same as chasing + fighting - the boys will run after each other + lock onto the head feathers of the others. If you can swap with the breeder for another girl, I would, or re-home him/get another 4 girls and they should be ok together as one big group Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladyjulian Posted April 12, 2010 Author Share Posted April 12, 2010 Thanks Lewis, that's useful. I won't try to reintegrate him in that case. We've just raised 14 new ones from chicks - 3 are going to a new home, but maybe I can put our damaged boy in with a group of the new girls... only trouble is we can't quite tell which of the chicks are boys and which are girls yet, other than by the chest feathers, and that's how we got the 'extra' boy in the first place (the Coturnix looked speckledy when we got him but as he got older the speckles faded and now he's got a plain chest). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janty Posted April 12, 2010 Share Posted April 12, 2010 I've had a similar problem this week. Last June we bought one male and four females. We soon realised that we had two males but they got on fine until this week when we had fighting. I have separated the Male and one female into a different run. I am going to introduce some more females soon to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted April 12, 2010 Share Posted April 12, 2010 How old are they? You could try vent sexing - if you compare their vents, the males are move curved outwards, chest sexing is normally quite good though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladyjulian Posted April 12, 2010 Author Share Posted April 12, 2010 They're 6 weeks old. I had a go at vent sexing them yesterday but couldn't really tell - maybe i need a magnifying glass! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
