VERY Stressed male quail

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Nabiki said:
Please don't release your quail, whatever you decide to do. One, they're domestic, and aren't likely to survive. Two, it's illegal in most places to release a non indigenous species to the wild.

You need to make a decision on how to deal with your aggressive male. You can eat him or try to rehome him. The reality is, not a lot of people will take a male.
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Don't worry, I won't release him :) I called the seller today and he was happy to take him in and give me some eggs in return.
 
So happy to read about your success with returning your quail! Are these coturnix/japanese quail? If so, having enough females is incredibly understated here. Believe me, speaking from experience I have tried everything not to have 10+ birds at a time, and nothing has worked.

Even if the two birds get along, one, two, and sometimes even FOUR females is not enough for the male. What happens is that all of the hens are overbred, and the feathers are stripped from their heads and backs. Once they have no more feathers on their back to protect them from the rooster's feet, he will scratch her to pieces and she will suffer daily. If you plan to own coturnix quails, and any males are involved at all, each one will need a harem.

Not a small harem, he will need between 5 to 10 ladies to himself depending on the age and aggressiveness of the bird or you will constantly be dealing with bald, bloody, stressed and depressed hens and that's no way to raise birds.

I'm STILL dealing with the feather issues caused by my previous lack of ladies for ONE male. I have 8 hens to one male now, because 4 were not enough for him! My new hens are just coming of age and will slowly be introduced next week. I have two hens that are bald and stressed, their backs are covered with bandages as a short term solution but it SUCKS for everyone involved.
 
GreedySeedFeedy said:
So happy to read about your success with returning your quail! Are these coturnix/japanese quail? If so, having enough females is incredibly understated here. Believe me, speaking from experience I have tried everything not to have 10+ birds at a time, and nothing has worked.

Even if the two birds get along, one, two, and sometimes even FOUR females is not enough for the male. What happens is that all of the hens are overbred, and the feathers are stripped from their heads and backs. Once they have no more feathers on their back to protect them from the rooster's feet, he will scratch her to pieces and she will suffer daily. If you plan to own coturnix quails, and any males are involved at all, each one will need a harem.

Not a small harem, he will need between 5 to 10 ladies to himself depending on the age and aggressiveness of the bird or you will constantly be dealing with bald, bloody, stressed and depressed hens and that's no way to raise birds.

I'm STILL dealing with the feather issues caused by my previous lack of ladies for ONE male. I have 8 hens to one male now, because 4 were not enough for him! My new hens are just coming of age and will slowly be introduced next week. I have two hens that are bald and stressed, their backs are covered with bandages as a short term solution but it SUCKS for everyone involved.
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UPDATE:
1. After I gave my aggressive quail away. My 1 female and 1 male quail lived very well together. They never fought, even till adulthood. No missing feathers, no strange behavior, etc. Whenever he tries to mate with her, she just runs away and he just completely gives up until the next mating season haha. I think I just got a *very* passive male quail, which I know is not at all common.
2. Yes, they are Japanese quail. But unfortunately, an animal had killed my female quail not too long ago. It was horrible :(
You can read my thread from a few days ago...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/something-killed-my-quail.1464217/
3. I ended up giving back my passive male quail as well(back to that same seller)...
I won't be raising any more quails.
4. MAKE SURE TO KEEP YOUR CAGE SECURE AS POSSIBLE!
 
quailsssss said:
Hi people.. I have 3 quails, a gray, brown, and yellow one. I posted a thread last week about my gray quail attacking my yellow quail. I recently found out that my gray and brown quails are male, while my yellow quail is female. I tried everything to get my gray quail to stop, but for some reason he only attacks my female quail(yellow). I've separated him for a few days now and he is incredibly stressed. The first day, he made some loud noises and he seemed to be calling for the others, but he was fine after that. The second day, his noises became louder. The third day, even louder. Today, the sixth day, he's been making some crazy loud calls(school fire alarm loud)and he flew out of the separate box that I put him in. When quail are scared, they usually lower their heads and look up, but his reaction seemed to be much more serious. When he flew out, he went into a corner and stayed crouched with his feathers ruffled for 10 minutes. To explain, he was in the position when quails take a dump(tail up), except he wasn't trying to take a dump. His cries are getting louder and I don't know what to do! I'm incredibly stressed, even more so because he's stressed and it's affecting my day to day life. Any tips on calming a stressed quail?? Or any ideas on why he's attacking only my female quail? He doesn't seem bothered by my brown quail(male) at all, which is quite weird because I know that males usually fight each other for the female. Luckily my brown quail is docile, so him and my yellow quail are staying together just fine. My parents are saying that I should release my gray quail to the mountains 😔, but I'm pretty sure he won't survive because he's been living at my house since he was 3 days old. Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading ;-;;.
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One Male should have 4-6 females, if there's less than this he can become very aggressive. Sometimes even then the male can still be problematic. But again, not having enough females per male can bring out that aggressive nature. Also, not having adequate space can cause aggression. There should be approximately 1 quail for every 1 square ft of space. If you have the space available maybe try getting your aggressive male some more females.
 

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