beach chick Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 (edited) my quail keeping I mean. I had 3 colonies - 2 of 3 birds each (1 male, 2 female), one of 4 (2 of each). all quite stable and happy, although only one bird was laying. on tuesday morning I discovered a fox had burrowed in and taken 2 females from 1 pen, leaving the lone male. so I put him into the other colony of 3 as didnt want to leave him on his own. 1 of the females in there suddenly collapsed and died overnight. no sign of injury, she just went downhill very quickly. so that left 2 males and 1 female in that pen. this morning I have had to remove the female because she's been pecked on the eye (its closed, seems clean). so I now have an excess of males, and I am sure they are going to fight with no laydeez around to amuse them. I dont want any more quail; I cant think of anyone who is going to want to give a home to all these males. I guess they will just have to see if they can become accustomed to celibacy without resorting to murder Edited June 10, 2011 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammaT Posted June 2, 2011 Share Posted June 2, 2011 Oh Beach Chick, I know exactly what you mean about quail keeping. It's been soooo unpredictable for us so far and I'm left with the feeling that nothing I do is right for them. I'm down to 2 now, one of each, after one was killed in the eglu run by either a fox or a cat. Then the female that was left was attacked again by something that grabbed her wing through the run - because she likes to sleep right up against the run wire!!! They are too stupid to go into the eglu at night so we are resorting to leaning through the eglu run door with a broom and scaring them to death to get them to go in. Better that than being killed in the night though I suppose. I don't think we'll be getting any more of them as they seem to be getting along ok but maybe it will be different when the male regains his strength after the various attacks. And no eggs either - I've given up on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach chick Posted June 2, 2011 Author Share Posted June 2, 2011 well the one I removed might or might not have been female; she is doing ok ish, not eating or drinking much but not moribund either. but one of the remaining 2 (which I thought were both male) must be female because one of them is laying... so we are still getting our 1 quail egg per day! I think they have some kind of gender confusion issue going on - all of them seem to be at it with one or another all day long, and I cant tell who's up to what... quite frankly, I am at the stage where I think if they are thick enough to sleep next to the wire they might quite possibly deserve all they get... well, the poorly one mentioned above pegged it. BUT, the group of 4 I thought were all male have confounded me, because I found an EGG in their run this morning. to be honest, I have got very confused about which quail I got from where at which time.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach chick Posted June 10, 2011 Author Share Posted June 10, 2011 oh, I thought I had updated! the moribund one did peg it. BUT... I have had since had 2 eggs from the colony I thought was 4 males?! so I was wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach chick Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 good grief, I dont know what's come over them... the colony I thought was 4 males produced 3 eggs today!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach chick Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 and again today Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 They obviously just needed stirring up a bit to sort themselves out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarlettohara Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Yay Mine should hatch next week - looking forward to it I think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beach chick Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 quail chicks are cute, they look like little bumblebees Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
