In the darkness…

[Susan Skylark]

Sorry, just had to name this post something dramatic! Woke up to find my pearl hen got beat up (I call them the mafia pen for a reason!). I think I will be switching pens around once she feels better. How does this whole ‘move birds in the dark thing work?’ Are they pretty much comatose or do they wake up a little bit? We had to keep a newly hatched hooded merganser overnight once as it was too late to call game and fish and we couldn’t find his mom out on the marsh. He was completely zonked after dark, I thought he was going to die but was perky as could be come morning, and we did find the hen with 11 other ducklings. Set him loose on the edge of the pond and he started peeping away to get her attention. Is it similar with quail after hours? Thanks!

 

[Nabiki]

Your quail will wake up when you move them. They should also go back to sleep pretty quickly as long as it's dark.

I will take all of the birds out and put them in a temporary pen of some sort. This could just be a tote with some shavings in it. Then clean and rearrange their existing pen. Move hiding places around, put food and water in a different place.

After dark, take the totes (since you will have at least two groups/birds to introduce) put them all in the pen and leave them there. When they wake up in the morning, they think they're in a new place, so new birds are not a big deal.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Sometimes dumb works to your advantage! I have 3 pens, one (apparently) bum male, and some colors I wanted to mix anyway. I can mix birds from all pens instead of having one or two strangers 2/3 will be new, put the bum boy with hens of uninteresting color, and put the majority of birds in a novel pen. My outside birds don’t use their hiding spots. The inside birds don’t use their sand bath (except for grit and litter box). Ugh! It’s a soap opera!