Hi there!
I am currently raising four lovely coturnix quails. They live indoors in a hutch in my apartment, which is surprisingly unobtrusive with regular cleaning!
Generally, the birds seem very happy. I have three females and one male. Two of the females are kept in the lower half of the hutch with no issues. I had the male and another female in the upper half of the hutch who were getting along fine, until it seemed that the male was getting a little too aggressive with his mating, and pulling out feathers of the female and generally causing her enough stress that she intermittently would lay shell-less eggs. The other females below immediately go off-lay when the male is around, and the female up top has become territorial and aggressive with other females, so integrating all of them together isn't going to happen. The couple upstairs has plenty of space and lots of hidey holes, but that hasn't been enough to assuage the issue with over-aggressive mating.
I split the upper level in half with a chicken wire screen, so that the male and female can see each other (Which keeps them from making loud mate-seeking noises), but prevents actual mating and aggression. That seemed to work well for a little while - the female went back to laying beautiful eggs every day, and the male has been generally quiet (he is very loud if we just separate him outright).
However, the male does not seem to be eating very much at all. He is barely touching his crumbles, and only pecks a little bit when I put his regular favorite fruits and veggies in. For a few days he would eat meal worms out of my hand as usual, but lately he won't. The strange thing is, he seems to *want* to eat the meal worms - he pecks at them and everything, but it seems like his beak is too weak to actually grab them. In general his spirits are completely fine, he jumps around and comes to the front of the hutch when I approach and sticks his head out looking for mealworms and attention, but he seems to be physically incapable of moving his mouth in a way that will let him eat the worms. In the last couple days he has started rapidly sticking his tongue in and out when I try to feed him the worms. It seems like he is having trouble with beak strength and/or the motor skills needed to eat.
The other thing is that he stopped drinking from the regular nipple water bottles that I have for him, but I think it's only because he found it suddenly difficult to use it (like he wasn't strong enough to push for water). I put a leaky, hamster-style waterbottle in for him and he's been drinking all the water droplets that come out of it like crazy.
I checked his beak to see if it was overgrown and needed trimming but it looks OK. Any idea what could be going on? Is he just getting really weird because he's upset he's separated from the female? Thoughts on what I could do to make sure he is getting enough food and water?
I love this little guy and am sad to see him so distressed! At the same time, I don't want to reintegrate him with the female and make her stressed... oof Quail social dynamics are so complicated!
I am currently raising four lovely coturnix quails. They live indoors in a hutch in my apartment, which is surprisingly unobtrusive with regular cleaning!
Generally, the birds seem very happy. I have three females and one male. Two of the females are kept in the lower half of the hutch with no issues. I had the male and another female in the upper half of the hutch who were getting along fine, until it seemed that the male was getting a little too aggressive with his mating, and pulling out feathers of the female and generally causing her enough stress that she intermittently would lay shell-less eggs. The other females below immediately go off-lay when the male is around, and the female up top has become territorial and aggressive with other females, so integrating all of them together isn't going to happen. The couple upstairs has plenty of space and lots of hidey holes, but that hasn't been enough to assuage the issue with over-aggressive mating.
I split the upper level in half with a chicken wire screen, so that the male and female can see each other (Which keeps them from making loud mate-seeking noises), but prevents actual mating and aggression. That seemed to work well for a little while - the female went back to laying beautiful eggs every day, and the male has been generally quiet (he is very loud if we just separate him outright).
However, the male does not seem to be eating very much at all. He is barely touching his crumbles, and only pecks a little bit when I put his regular favorite fruits and veggies in. For a few days he would eat meal worms out of my hand as usual, but lately he won't. The strange thing is, he seems to *want* to eat the meal worms - he pecks at them and everything, but it seems like his beak is too weak to actually grab them. In general his spirits are completely fine, he jumps around and comes to the front of the hutch when I approach and sticks his head out looking for mealworms and attention, but he seems to be physically incapable of moving his mouth in a way that will let him eat the worms. In the last couple days he has started rapidly sticking his tongue in and out when I try to feed him the worms. It seems like he is having trouble with beak strength and/or the motor skills needed to eat.
The other thing is that he stopped drinking from the regular nipple water bottles that I have for him, but I think it's only because he found it suddenly difficult to use it (like he wasn't strong enough to push for water). I put a leaky, hamster-style waterbottle in for him and he's been drinking all the water droplets that come out of it like crazy.
I checked his beak to see if it was overgrown and needed trimming but it looks OK. Any idea what could be going on? Is he just getting really weird because he's upset he's separated from the female? Thoughts on what I could do to make sure he is getting enough food and water?
I love this little guy and am sad to see him so distressed! At the same time, I don't want to reintegrate him with the female and make her stressed... oof Quail social dynamics are so complicated!
