Recent content by NjQuailer

Found one of my hens limping today and when I checked her, I found she had a severely swollen leg joint. Anybody have this happen before? Looking for advice on what to do.

Thanks for the guidance Nabiki. I vent sexed all these birds when they were 8 weeks. They’re now 11 weeks old, so I’m going to double check. If I was right and there was one male, what do you think I should do? Observe for a while, or take caution and remove the male?

After being gone all day, I came home to collect eggs and found one of my females completely scalped. She was in a pen with 4 other birds, and she had one eye severely damaged and it looked like either bleeding or the wound that extended down behind the top of the wing a bit. I didn’t look too...

Other than cleaning up often and not letting poop accumulate (I clean often), how else can I reduce the number of flies hanging around my quail pen?

Yup! They’re actually in a rabbit hutch, so they have an enclosed portion of the cage with a sand bath inside. Cedar branches scattered throughout too

I have a 1:5 ratio in that pen. All birds the same age, and 2 males and 10 females. Really scratching my head on this one. Maybe now that the males are crowing I'll have eggs on the way.

This is a follow up to my last post about my 9 week old birds not laying. They’re now 10 weeks old, under 16 hours of light, with plenty of food and water. I started them on a layer crumble last week. Still no eggs, but the males started crowing. Do males mature quicker? In other words, do...

Looking back, I think when I added extra light to them, I might have induced a molt. That was a few weeks ago now, early March. I noticed pin feathers growing on the back of their necks. Could that be the reason for delayed laying? How long do they usually go out of commission on a molt?

We have a 1:5 male to female ratio! We did have a hawk around 2 weeks ago, but hasn’t been back since

Yup! They’re on 15 hours of light now. Solar panel light on the outdoor section of the cage. I was just wondering if there was any purpose in putting a light fixture, same hours of duration, in the enclosed section of the coop. I’ve seen people do it, and didn’t know if it was necessary since...

I have a raised rabbit hutch with young birds. I have solar paneled lights on the outside that provide light to the open part of the cage, but there’s also an enclosed section. The birds haven’t started laying yet at 9 weeks. Do you need to put a light on the enclosed section as well as the open...

Hey all! We just incubated our first batch of quail and had to assist this young bird during the zip stage where it became stuck. It came out with this growth or protruding on its butt. Does anyone know what this is? What can we do to assist it?