When Do We Decide To Split The Flock?

[pterry97]

Hi all,

My quail are now 6 weeks old, which I know is where they'll be reaching sexual maturity and begin producing potential eggs and roo foam. I know that the rule of thumb for keeping quail is 1 roo for every 4-6 hens, and that eventually my lot will need to be segregated to keep the peace, but I'm wondering when I need to start this? Is it kinder to do it before potential roughhousing and fights break out, or do I wait until I notice actual disagreements occurring in the flock?

This will be a longshot of a question, and highly unlikely for a positive answer, but I want to ask anyways. Has anyone ever experienced having a flock of mixed sexed quail coexisting and getting along? I only ask this because when I first introduced the two buttons to my coturnix, at first two of my roo's hated them and would trumpet and chase them around the cage. This lasted for about 2-4 days before they stopped the chasing. For the past 2 weeks the buttons would always keep their distance from the coturnix, which was to be expected. However this past week, the button roo has been hanging out a lot with the coturnix hens much more, and today, I even watched both of the buttons sleeping side by side with the one coturnix roo that would originally chase them. Disagreements seem to have stopped in the flock, which seems like the opposite of what's supposed to be happening. Either way, it's going to hurt when they start getting mean and hormonal I'm sure.

I currently have peace in the flock, but how long will it last?

 

[SpotTheCat]

It last until it doesn’t. I had 3 males and 10 females coturnix quail who lived together happily for all most a year until they decided they did not like each other. When hormones start it will definitely change

I would remove the extra males as soon as possible, I generally find out my quail are fighting because one of them got hurt, so it is nicest to remove the extra males before any quail gets hurt

 

[NY Coturnix]

I agree with Spot. If you have the space do it before the fighting starts.

 

[pterry97]

It last until it doesn’t. I had 3 males and 10 females coturnix quail who lived together happily for all most a year until they decided they did not like each other. When hormones start it will definitely change

I would remove the extra males as soon as possible, I generally find out my quail are fighting because one of them got hurt, so it is nicest to remove the extra males before any quail gets hurt

Almost a year is a lot longer than I was expecting, wow!

It's just hard trying to think how I can safely divide them; since I have an equal set of 3 coturnix hens and 3 roos, along with 1 button hen and 1 button roo. With a set going to the farm and a set staying with me, trying to figure out what works is... tricky. 2 of my coturnix (1 hen and 1 rooster) have bad legs so they can't go to the farm, and the 2 buttons can't go either, so that leaves 4 with them and 4 with me... Except we'd be stuck with 1 hen to every roo. Which then doesn't solve the future issue of hormones anyways.

If I gave them all the hens only with 1 roo, there'd still only be 2 viable hens because the button hen wouldn't fit in and the one with the bad legs wouldn't stand a chance. If I gave them the roo's only they'd only have 3, which isn't particularly good because I'd still have 5 at home who would still need possible separating. We can't just buy more hens because there's literally nowhere nearby who sells coturnix in the first place, and hatching more risks just getting more roo's. I don't have the space to have different sets of flock at home either, so it's definitely a conundrum ahh.

 

[NY Coturnix]

you need to choose the best roo and put him will the hens. The other males need to "go way". No experience with buttons but I wouldn't think you'd want it penned with the coturnix but others can help more with that.

 

[SpotTheCat]

What I know of buttons is they do best in pairs. it is also not recommended to keep them with coturnix, but I think some people have. This is just what I have read

 

[FloorCandy]

You need to separate your buttons ASAP. Once the peace is broken, you may get no warning and the Coturnix giving a warning peck can easily kill a button. A cot male trying to mate a button female can easily kill her. Keep the buttons together in a pair. If you have a very large outdoor aviary at the farm and your weather is fair, you can possibly keep them together with some Coturnix in a large natural aviary, but not in a small space.

Your Coturnix will turn on each other sooner than later. I think I saw that you posted you don’t plan to cull any, but please keep in mind that being constantly abused and mated is not a good life for a hen, and the boys who get beat up and live in fear will also be living pretty poor lives. The most humane thing would be to cull the extra males, and keep the hens with 1 boy.

Whatever you believe in, God, nature etc, the plan for quail is for a huge percentage of every hatch to be food for other creatures. There is no shame in eating them, and if it’s hard for you because you’ve become attached, you can consider giving them to someone else to cull and eat.

The idea of a permanent male jail is ok, but be prepared for occasional fights and injuries and even gruesome deaths, which can be prevented by culling the extras. Having a farm and not culling and eating extra males is going to fill your farm up with hungry mouths that are collecting a free handout, and is going to make it more and more difficult as the farm grows. Culling them now and getting accustomed to the idea will help you tremendously in the future in other animal endeavors. Culling for harmony is part of farm life.

 

[pterry97]

You need to separate your buttons ASAP. Once the peace is broken, you may get no warning and the Coturnix giving a warning peck can easily kill a button. A cot male trying to mate a button female can easily kill her. Keep the buttons together in a pair. If you have a very large outdoor aviary at the farm and your weather is fair, you can possibly keep them together with some Coturnix in a large natural aviary, but not in a small space.

Your Coturnix will turn on each other sooner than later. I think I saw that you posted you don’t plan to cull any, but please keep in mind that being constantly abused and mated is not a good life for a hen, and the boys who get beat up and live in fear will also be living pretty poor lives. The most humane thing would be to cull the extra males, and keep the hens with 1 boy.

Whatever you believe in, God, nature etc, the plan for quail is for a huge percentage of every hatch to be food for other creatures. There is no shame in eating them, and if it’s hard for you because you’ve become attached, you can consider giving them to someone else to cull and eat.

The idea of a permanent male jail is ok, but be prepared for occasional fights and injuries and even gruesome deaths, which can be prevented by culling the extras. Having a farm and not culling and eating extra males is going to fill your farm up with hungry mouths that are collecting a free handout, and is going to make it more and more difficult as the farm grows. Culling them now and getting accustomed to the idea will help you tremendously in the future in other animal endeavors. Culling for harmony is part of farm life.

I think you misunderstand the farm, it's not a produce farm, but an urban small animal farm. We don't breed any of our livestock, most of what we have is surrendered to us as ex-pets and the like. We basically have enclosures where animals live the rest of their lives, and get daily interaction with members of the public who walk around the farm. It's essentially a free interactive zoo but for small farm animals. So the quail won't be breeding, at most if the hens lay the eggs will be sold for eating as we do with our chicken and duck eggs. We legally cannot cull animals here for the sake of it; especially not in our own homes. We have stunning laws that apply to even poultry and quail, popping the heads of which I see plenty of people do online is out of the question.

The only real solution I have is to try and figure out who to keep with me, and who to take to the farm. The buttons are far too small for the farm as they could easily fit through chicken wire, and if they escaped there'd be no way of ever getting them back. The plan was to keep them along with my two quail who have bad legs, aka not suitable for outdoor life. But my 2 coturnix are both hen and rooster. Meaning everyone else who can go is 2 hens and 2 roosters. I feel they'd be fine with the buttons because they're not agile when it comes to the leg issues. But having only 2 quail in an entire enclosure at the farm, with another 2 in a different enclosure is a bit tricky to manage. The intent is that the quail will share a large aviary with some rescued pheasant poults, and while we relocate animals frequently (eg: we have 6 rabbits and only 4 get along, so 1 lives with a mixed flock of turkeys, chickens, ducks, and guineas, and another lives with the other guineas) the quail are by far the smallest animal on the farm and wouldn't be able to share an enclosure with anything else we have at the moment, without them flat out walking out of the cage enclosure sides or being food potential. I knowthe farm isn't ready for the quail yet because they're prioritising upgrading the enclosure for our new cows on the way, which is why I'm holding onto the quail for longer than expected, and am trying to find every other option I can get. The thing is that for the farm, the roo's would be best for them to have because they're by far the tamest and easier to handle. The hen's (particularly Dot) has gotten flighty, so for people to be able to hold them in the first place the roo's are what they need. But if I kept all the hens at home + Cookie (bad leg), then they'd only have 2 quail, which feels a bit redundant since I reared the quail for the farm in the first place. I just wish I could find somewhere nearby who actually sold more coturnix quails, so we could buy more hens and even the playing field a bit, but I definitely can't house anymore quail and that'd have to wait until they actually get to the farm in the first place. It feels like I'm digging a deeper pit for myself ahhh.