Button Quail Help!Question:Hi, I’m having some trouble with my button quails. I’m sorry if this post ends up being long. >__> The first problem is I have a very aggressive female quail. This is the first time one of my hens has ever shown any aggression. And she’s crazy! She tries to kill my males! At the moment, she’s in a separate cage within the aviary so that she can’t hurt anyone. She even tries to get through the bars of the cage to attack them, but can’t reach them. She was mates with one of my males (he was a silver mutation), and they got on famously all year. But a couple of weeks ago she turned around and killed him. I was devastated. :( I have another male in there, and I’m very careful not to let her near him at the moment because it’s especially him that she shows aggression towards. So here’s my question, why is she so aggressive, and towards males in particular (females too sometimes)? Is there anything I can do? And problem number two. Yesterday, I introduced a silver button quail hen to my aviary. She is so beautiful! I let her go in there, and she ran straight for the food and started eating. My male quail (wild type colour) spotted her. He lay very low to the ground and crept up behind her slowly while making a strange sound, as if stalking her. Then, he ran at her and tried to grab her around the face area. He did this a couple of times, aiming at the face or whatever was closest to him. It really looks like he is trying to hurt her (just to let you know, she isn’t injured at all, no feathers were even pulled out). A few times he ran at her with his feathers out, the same way the quails run at me if they have babies and are trying to protect them. So what’s the deal with that? I could understand if they were both males, but this new female is quite obviously a female. So now she is temporarily in a separate cage within the aviary too until I figure out what to do. And the aggressive female I have was trying to get at her, even though they aren’t even nearly close enough to reach each other. If this helps at all, at the moment the quails I have are: 1 wild type male (attacking the new hen) - Zack 1 wild type female (she isn’t causing any problems at all and is with the male) - Hitomi 1 wild type female (in a separate cage, she’s the aggressive one that attacks males) - Aya 1 silver female (new to the aviary, the male appears to be attacking her) – Mitski Answer: you do know what's going on don't you??? Just in case you don't I'll try to keep this short. 1. Your aggressive hen is tired from being chased constantly. 2. She's killed her mate, but birds generally mate for life. "Birds in general, not specifically quail, but I suspect it's the same. So even though you are introducing a new male, she's not immediately going to accept him and may never. 2. The problem is the same with the new female. You introduced this bird into your flock, and to them she's a threat. Thus your male will continue to attack her unless you work actively could take months, maybe a year, and yet it may not work at all, for this male and the rest of the flock to accept her. If you leave her with him, and perhaps the rest of the flock alone chances are your new bird will be a dead bird within a relatively short time. Read up on it. Sorry, it isn't good news but what I'm telling you is based on fact. Answer: Check out 'compatibility' in this website. http://www.singing-wings-aviary.com/buttonquail.htm "the true button quail species requires 1 female to 4 male ratio as it's the females that's aggressive. |
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