I'm new to quails like as of this July. but I also put an extra male in with my hens and I'm glad I did. our biggest male "Adam" and another male just hated each other so I had to move the other male out. the extra male "blue" as he has a blue band he is big but very submissive he immediately gives up so Adam hardly picks of him. blue still services the hens so it was nice to have one extra. Quail have personalities, and some quails are jerks.
Same. I started with the biggest. I was keeping him inside because he was so loud. Drove me nuts. I begged them everyday to please be quiet because I didn’t want to kill them. But they didn’t listen. 😖😭
I received quail eggs from my daughter in Ava, I now have 25 quail!!! I have them in a small coop my daughter built many years ago. Behind this coop is an outdoor area that is approximately 10x10'. It is chain link and I totally wrapped it with chicken wire, sides and the top. They seem content..They hatched May 24th...so here goes anorher adventure!!!
Cheers mate , tried the vinigar spray on 1 my aggressive males , worked for 2 days , but your videos may helped me solve my issue with them , female to male ratio is to high , thanks again 👍
Muhammad Owais I’ve never really had that problem so I don’t really know. But if I were you like i said, I would incubate them because the quail doesn’t have her broody instinct
I was gifted 6 quail which turned out to be 3 females and 3 males. One of the males attacked and killed one of the other males, so I had to give the aggressor away. That left me 1 male to 3 females, and that's what I got. Sometimes the females do bully the male a little bit. If it's just one hen doing it I will put her in isolation for a day or two, but if it's more than one than I move the rooster into isolation for at least a few hours or a day. So far I've always been able to successfully put them all back together again, but they are only about 3 months old, and I've had to do 3 isolations already, so I don't know how much longer this can work. I have ordered, and arriving in a few days, a much larger cage for them all and will have hiding places and nesting places and all kinds of good stuff for them, and hopefully that will help keep the peace... Hopefully!
I commented quite a while ago if I should get more females for my male quail as he only has one hen. (she isn't overbred by him thankfully) And I was hoping she would go broody at some point and I know it isn't common for them to go broody... but amazing news! She has gone broody and is sitting on four eggs! So really excited for her. Any tips appreciated! :) Have one of your quail ever gone broody?
Awesome. I have never had that happen to me so i can't give a lot of advice. I don't think there is much you need to do though. Let me know how it goes.
Slightly Rednecked So I figured out that I had somehow miscounted 😂 and there were 7 eggs under her, not 4! 6 out of 7 eggs hatched and she's a marvellous mother! I had decided to leave the male in with them all and see if they'd be okay all together as he is very docile and I've never seen him peck them. But, she is a little too overprotective and pecks him badly so I bought him home. I'll introduce him back again in a week or so, when she is less tetchy about them lol. Very pleased with her for hatching them all out.
Hey Chris! Love your channel. We’ve just grew out our 2nd pen of new celedons. We ended up with 6 hens and 7 roos. I had hoped for more hens but it is what it is. Would you recommend 1 or 2 roos for these girls? Our first pen is all Jumbos with 9 hens and 2 roos who fight like hell. Hoping I can send them to the freezer and sun in a couple of my new boys. Thoughts?
I have "Jumbo" type quail too have you noticed some of your eggs are bluish and some white? I was told at our poultry meeting that the only true through color for eggs are blue and white. Blue eggs are blue all the way through, white the same thing. Brown and green and tan however are typically white. Just like the jumbo quail eggs are typically white inside. The female develops those colors on the outside in the last few hours. I have noticed the inside of my greenish olive with brown spot looking eggs are blue on the inside and the color of my whitish and brown spotted eggs are white on the inside. I thought it was a bit odd but probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the poultry meeting and mentioning the only through colors are blue and white. Check your spotted eggs on the inside to see if they are light blue on the inside too. It's like a pale greenish color when I take pictures but in person it's more of a pale blue (not sure what's up with my camera lol maybe it's the lighting? Not sure). I know most people only pay attention to the outside but they are quite pretty.
The blue eggs i have are celedon eggs. I did a video not too long ago about "where to get quail eggs" and talked about where you can get the eggs for the hens that lay these types of eggs. The regular spotted eggs are actually white eggs with spots on them. You can wash the spots off and have a completely white egg (bad for storage and incubation though). Sometimes I get regular quail eggs that have a bluish tint to them but they aren't the same as the green blue celedon eggs seen in the video.
Those are really cool, not sure if my little birds are mixed breeds but the "greenish" eggs with spots (as opposed to the "Whitish eggs with spots") I have are blue on the inside. Not sure if this link will go through to you. facebook.com/SunnieDIY/photos/a.281091989024745.1073741828.280795595721051/281092009024743/ It's a facebook picture but this is kind of what I mean. Is that normal for Jumbo quail or do you think my birds may be mixes? Do quail even really mix? I imagine they could but they seem very picky so not sure if they would.
I am guessing it was removed because of the link, which is fine I was just hoping that you would see it an elaborate. Is this typical of "Jumbo" quail? I just thought it was odd and I haven't found anything about it anywhere so I am wondering if they are mixed breeds maybe? If you were able to see it before it was removed (I hope) what are your thoughts on it? If you saw the picture the inside was pretty clearly a light blue. It makes the outside of the egg appear to be an olivish color (since if it was a white shell it likely would just be an off white with brown spots but the bluish shell seems to make it seem more greenish) with the brown spots and outside coat. I just found it to be odd and thought I would ask. They aren't so solid on the outside like your celedon eggs though. Those are gorgeous by the way it would be nice to have bluish eggs that are all the way blue I will check out that video.
Hi Chris i have 2 def roosters 1 unsure of, i had been keeping the oldest male and female together but he was chasing her to much so i took her out.. now i have a crowing problem. How many males can be safely kept wit 7-8 hens? i noticed the Males are mating with the younger females but they have not started laying yet..would that stop them from laying like causing stress?
I tried that (I had two hens and two roosters) and one rooster scalped the other rooster. He would of died if I hadnt taken him out. That rooster which almost killed him then started doing damage to one of the 2 hens so Ive taken him out and put the previous beat up rooster (he's healed with a caved in head) with the hens and that rooster is doing fine with the 2 hens.
There are a couple of videos on this channel. Just search "Slightly Rednecked sexing quail" in RU-vid. Good information there. Easier to see explained and compared than to read it.
Question for you. If you choose to take the males out and let them live out alittle longer in a separate cage. A male only age. do they fight each other?
I just bought 3 pairs of Georgia White Bobwhites. I built small cages allowing them to be on the ground. I put a female and one male in each cage. The first pair seemed happy when I put them in the cage and then I built the second cage and put the next pair in. Now all they do is pace the sides of the cages - the sides that face each other. So should I just put 3 of the females in with the calmest male?
I just got in to quail My question is does it matter in the eggs later on incest breeding? Or do I have to go every now and then to another breeder and get Breeders ? I have a channel that I have let go dormant for about a year or more because of covid. But I plan on starting to do videos again. Maybe you can suggest and some of my videos things I'm doing wrong lol. God-bless have a great day.
I have 45 quail in 1 huge 20 by 10 inclosed coop. First time ive taken on this many. Last time I had 2 males 2 females they worked out fine. My question is how do you tell male from female? They are about 4 to 5 weeks old now.. Every other quail set up I seen always small enclosed wooden coope. I do however have 2 small medium size wooden coops inside the enclosure... I know females darker in color usually and my males after 8 months before had a mowhawk with blue tail feathers. I have the cortex jumbo quail..... .
I think you are asking about keeping the male separate so he doesn't crow. That won't fix the issue. If He will calm down a little as he gets older but he will continue to crow during the breeding season. If you don't care to breed him, you can try covering the cage to get the hours of light down to under 10 a day and he will stop crowing. But you won't get fertile eggs that way either.
I can’t believe how mean these birds can be to each other! I’m new to raising them and I started with ten babies I bought. Two died and I’m left with 8. It was like over night they started beating each other up. I’ve separated them and I believe I have only one roster but boy is he mean. Really beats up hens. I have him by his self. Will he change? He is my only roster so I really don’t want to coul him.
They can be mean for sure and some birds are worse than others. Sometimes they will calm down with time. Also, you may be just seeing breeding behavior. The males pull the feathers on the back of the hen's head when breeding. It can look like aggression because they tend to be missing feathers but it is normal behavior. If he is just aggressive (pecking at the face and eyes) he may or may not get over it. Usually, they will calm down given some time. You might also try switching to the Jumbo Pharoah or Jumbo Meat Maker (brown) birds. They tend to not be as aggressive as some other color patterns.
Thanks for this video new to raising quail and have noticed that some are getting beat up their 6 weeks 4 days old when should I cull the extra roosters
I am sorry for the slow response. I generally let my roosters grow to about 8 weeks before I process them. You can do it earlier though. If things get really bad and you don't have a way to separate the extra roosters to their own pen you may want to just go ahead and process them.
when breeding quail when does inbreeding become a problem like is it ok to leave a female chick in the pen with the Rooster was problely her Father ? at what point do You want new DNA /Genetics
I try to introduce some new genetics every year and a half or so. I haven't had any problems myself so i can't give you exacts but hope that helps a little.
What if there is only one rooster and two hens and he is beating them up everyday? I want to grow my flcok but he beats them up so I don't know what to do.
That is tough for sure. if you have another cage you can move him to that cage temporarily. Once bred, the female can continue to produce fertile eggs for up to 10 days. So you can keep him separate and only introduce him to the hens for 2 or 3 days a week. that might help.
Question, Important at this time..I noticed this question wasn't replied to here, So I am asking again, Do the roosters fight amongst themselves, how to put the roosters together. and do they fight.?? how to keep them from fighting..??
@@andreaeskelson7730 still no reply to the question..since then , I put roosters in one pen and they fight like crazy, with each other. so I guess all we can do is cull them,
they will be fine if you have no females in the same area..They can hear them if not see them..so i put my roosters in the carport away from the hens.. it works..roosters don't bother each other,, nothing to fight over... LOL
To quickly answer.. they can't really be kept from fighting . But cases can be different. But usually they will always fight. There is less Chance if there are lots of females per male. Also bigger aviaries with more roaming space can calm the males. Im sure there is more on this topic. And of course removing them from the females should reduce the fighting alot.
Question I have had 1 male and 3 female A&M quail for 3 weeks. They laid eggs the first day had them but have not laid since do you know what might be causing them not to lay
More than likely it is just the move that made them stop laying. If everything is right (enough light and high protein food) they should start laying again anytime now. just be patient.
Sell them or Cull them for food. Lots of very easy tutorials on you tube form homesteaders. Its seconds and easy to prep a bird (quail) for dinner or freezing.
well there could be lots of reasons. The first thing would be to look at the light. If they don't have 14 hours of light a day they will generally stop laying. Check that out first and go from there.
Hi Chris, i wonder which quail rooster is more active in breeding is it the noisy one or the quiet one? cause if its ok for the quiet one then il dispose the noisy for the sake of our neighbors lol
There is no way to know for sure but generally males will crow when in breeding season. So if they aren't crowing they aren't breeding. If they are young roosters they will calm down a little as they get older.
Great video!! What age can I roast a few with some potatoes and gravy?. Also, Do they taste like chicken? Im Getting 20 , 4 week old quail hens soon. Maybe I should get a few roosters too. : ) Subscribed!
Thanks for the kind comments and for subscribing. They generally reach butcher size at about 8 weeks old. As far as roasting them with potatoes, you will want to cook the potatoes first, quail cook incredibly fast. They don't really taste like chicken, more like dove if you are familiar with them. Hope that helps.
what do you use / do for the smell and the flies . i have six birds and the flies are terrible the cage is outside and i hose it down every day when feeling /watering .i have three rabbit cages next to the birds and no flies thanks for any help
I don't have a big problem with flies. I would avoid the washing myself, dry droppings don't smell much at all and the flies aren't bad. Wet droppings are terrible and draw the flies in. You can add a layer of straw, dead leaves, wood chips, or other carbon material as well to help it breakdown and keep the smell down. Hope that helps.
Mike McCluskey in the south they always put mason jars with some water about 1/2 full , nowadays they use plastic ziplock bags to drive away flies . and it does work. flytrap jar lids for mason jars works and you get free bird food.
We have guail 5, 3 famale 2 male. When we have only 3 female they lay eggs everyday but when we put 2 male they stop laying eggs what's gonna be the problem?
males may be stressing them out. i have bobwhites and the young maturing roos can be quite mean to each other and cause the hens unnecessary stress. i got my ratio 3 males 11 females and they started laying again.
Quail get stressed when you move them or introduce new quail. If you wait they will start laying again after a week or two. But a 2-3 ration means one of your roosters will probably kill the other.
Mine are "free ranging" as close as they can. The chicken netted pen surrounds the quails after I expanded it I have had no further fox problems (I am assuming it's because it's smart enough, despite being a cocky young adult fox, not to want to potentially get stuck in a fence that it can't see very well). The netting isn't as much of an eyesore as most fencing can be. Poultry wire isn't very safe here anyway so people usually just jump straight to the 1/4" hardwire cloth (woods everywhere here). I live in town and animals tend to stay clear of my yard (with the exception of this cocky young adult fox) at the very least in the front yard. Sometimes things linger around the wood line but even other dogs stay clear of our front yard since I have two dogs and my grandmother has two dogs. Not tiny dogs. They aren't mean but pretty scary and rush at whatever comes in the yard like they would eat it. Anyway when it attacked it didn't break in, since the expanded pen wasn't up at the time it would just go sit next to the edge and they would freak out so much they would jump to the fox outside of their pen (Their wings are clipped but when in panic mode the adrenaline gets going and suddenly they have super jumping abilities compared to normal. My fence is about 5 1/2' tall maybe a couple of inches taller). There were a couple of bite marks in the fence but nothing big enough for him to get through, thinking he might have actually tried to get them through the net since they sit at the edges a lot. Anyway since the expanded pen keeps him about 15-20' away from their pen he can't just sit at the edge and scare them anymore. I know he tried to come back one night after the expanded pen went up but he quickly realized the net was nothing he really wanted to mess with. During the day my dog, who's eyesight is better than mine, didn't know the fence was up yet and ran head first into it trying to run into the yard to pee and the bamboo seemed to bend a bit and bounce him back because the netting was very tightly done and my daughter saw the fox one day head butt the fence too and bounced off, at night it's damn near impossible to see so if the fox got through if I came out he wouldn't be able to "just get back out" and thank goodness he's smart enough to know that since I would rather not be mean to the fox and it to stay away if possible. I will do something if I must (most likely scare the dog crap out of it so it never wants to come back maybe smack it with a broom a few times just to make sure it goes "ahhhh humans are scary they will kill me" before I let it escape) Pretty much keeping them in a nice secure cage is easier, but I see how much my chickens enjoy their grass and I work from home so I have some time to do the trial and error with my fencing so I decided to set something up for them too. This way if they do super jump out there is another fence. When you know their behavior then they are pretty easy to catch. It's like chickens, they are so much faster than you just chasing them is pointless you have to be smarter than the chicken to catch the chicken since it can outrun you in a heartbeat. These guys are the same way only they prefer to hide and then fly/jump out and far so they can get away. If you face off with them and put your hands out they rethink jumping in your direction and usually you can chase them into something and catch them like a chicken sort of at that point. During the winter they will be in a normal but very large battery cage but during the spring/summer I want them to enjoy the grass and outside as much as the chickens do. The chickens would do well with a metal cage too but the netting with bamboo poles is much cheaper so I can give them far more room with that and quicker. In time when I can afford more permanent fencing I will likely change it, but the netting is doing really well for us. If we lived in town and didn't have 4 dogs on the property then we likely wouldn't have the same results though. They do not go into their shelter like chickens they are not that smart by the way. Very cute but not too bright. It's rained here and despite knowing where the dry area is and having the ability to get out of the rain sometimes they prefer to just sit there in the rain.... Some of them are smart enough and run for the shelter when it rains hard enough, but most do not seem to have much forethought. The same goes with locking them up at night. I was doing that with a pet porter when the pen wasn't expanded to save them from their own stupidity. Even though they smelled the fox and wanted to jump out they couldn't and the fox never bothered trying to break in. Which is why I know he really hates my netted fence. He could rip or chew through it in a heartbeat but to him it's not worth the risk or he would have done it. It's kind of like a maze the way I have it. Since my rooster (chicken rooster) knows little animals aren't suppose to be around his hens (he's attacked some of my quail when they happened to get out to him. I culled some of my boys and a couple broke away from me and he pounced on them) I have the chicken pen surrounding my quail pens so that way if snakes or anything else come around (we don't have true venomous snakes in Maine, only ribbon and garter snakes, which are mildly venomous colubrids but most people don't realize they have any venom at all and assume they are constrictors so Maine boasts it has no venomous snakes which is untrue, but they don't have "fangs" only some tiny ones in the back so they pretty much have to chew on something to really get any venom in) that way he can inadvertently protect my quail too even though he doesn't like them. He's always patrolling his area lol. I haven't had to cover them either because the predatory birds don't seem to want to risk going in my pen and my dogs come out on a regular basis. Nothing really wants to try getting in the small area where they are (small for big eagles but big area for tiny little quail so it's a win win for them). We don't have weasel/ other weasel like animal problems either despite most of the people on my poultry group having those kinds of problems. We probably would if they were by the wood line but that's why I chose our front yard. Wild animals try to have nothing to do with us or my dogs lol. I think if you know your area and you have the time to try it out, and you put them close to where people populate (here it's in the front yard right by our house) you stand a decent chance at doing ok but it really depends on your area. Our dogs I think are one of the top reasons we have less issues.
I have 1 male to 4 female. They are about 6 weeks old and are laying 3-4 eggs daily. At what point could I start incubating eggs from them? If you are just raising for eggs and meat does it matter if you mix varieties of quail in the same cage?
I usually give the hens about 2 weeks before I start collecting eggs for incubating. And mixing the birds together doesn't really matter at all. Just depends on what you are looking for. Jumbo birds tend to lay bigger eggs so if that matters to you then you would want to stick with jumbos.
Ciao! Greetings from italy! Your way of raising quails is very different from the italian ways (so to at least where I am exposed to.) The roosters to hen ratio is very helpful. But I am wondering, can I separate the roosters completely from the hen (have their own cage) and just put them together with the hens when I am ready to breed them? Or just separate a few hens with roosters from an all hens cage? What do you think of this method? Is it worth to have a separate cage for this method? I just want to make sure that I will have fertile eggs for the incubator instead of a guessing which is which. Thank you! Grazie!
You could do that but quail often fight a lot when first introduced to each other. I find it better to just keep the roosters with the hens all the time to avoid that. this ensures that I get fertile eggs when I want them and I don't have to deal with the fighting that takes place or waiting for eggs to become fertile when introducing the rooster to the hens. I hope that makes sense.
@@Slightlyrednecked it dose make sense! Thank you so much!!! We enjoy your videos, keep making more videos and hope that you and your family are safe from the coronavirus! God bless!
My one rooster will go from 0-100 in a flash, giving the girls Alot of grief, they haven't started laying eggs yet and I think they think he's just being aggressive so react that way. so I think I'm going to separate him with mesh for half the day just to give my girls and me some peace and quite
Same here Harry. I thought of waiting 2-3 days to see if it becomes calmer. But after seeing the Chris’s comment I thought of waiting more further. Lets see
Now he's fallen ill, he was fine when I went to sleep then when I woke up he was all fluffed up and wobbly on his feet not moving much. Any clues? Going to the vet later today hopefully he's ok, he made it through last night but has not improved
no, that is a very bad idea for multiple reasons. They probably won't survive, and if they do, they are probably not native to your area and don't belong in the wild there.
Hello SR! I recently took in 5 quail that needed a home, they are pets only. It appears that I have one rooster and 4 hens. One hen really beat up on the rooster so I separated him out with one female. He is overbreeding that poor hen and I want to separate them. Can I leave him alone or will that affect his quality of life? Thanks for any advice you can give me.
Quail are social birds and live in groups. I really don't like the idea of keeping one by itself but it can be done. Whether it affects the quality of life or not is hard to say for sure. Something you might try is to reduce the amount of light they are getting to less than 10 hours a day. This will cause them to go out of the breeding season and make them much more docile. You might be able to combine them all again that way.
Hi, I have a 12+ sq ft coop and have ten hen and two Roos, the last two afternoons I’ve pulled two eggs each night. At what point do you think I should get consistent eggs, maybe eight or ten a night. They hatched on Valentine’s Day so they are about six weeks or so, thanks for any input, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Joe
My 4 birds are 2 and a half weeks old. I have only just put them in the grow out pen the other day and there were 3 eggs this afternoon. Is it normal for them to lay so young?
hey ik this question may not sound smart but how would you know the eggs are fertile without cracking them open to look at the white dot and could I just leave the fertile eggs in the coop and just let the mother incubate them and hatch like a normal bird would?
Not a stupid question at all. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell without cracking it open. As far as letting the bird incubate them, it is very rare for coturnix to go broody and sit on their eggs. You are better off incubating them your self. I hope that helps.
Those are known as celedon eggs. I am not sure which hens lay them, the birds all look the same. Unfortunately I am unable to ship eggs to Sweden and have been unable to find a supplier that can do so. I wish I could help more.
you need more hens or less roosters. I like to run about 1 rooster to every 4 hens. The only other option is to separate them and introduce your roosters for a day or two every two weeks. The eggs will stay fertile for up to 10 days after being bred. Hope that helps.
blue eggs are caused by a gene known as celedon. Pretty much any bird can carry it so there is no way to just look at a bird and know if they have that gene or not.
I sell some from time to time but only for local pick up. I am not set up to ship eggs. Kansas City Quail farms has celedon eggs available for shipping though.
We have just been given four quail. Iam assuming the noisy one is male. Well they pecked him so bad we had to remove him, they just chase him out of cage whenever he tries to return. Any suggestions please?
That is very common when you introduce new birds. There are a couple of things you can do. You could just put him in the cage and let them work it out and hope they don't injure him too badly. He might lose an eye but it is rare that they actually kill the new bird. You can try putting him in a cage with just one of the other birds and give them a chance to acclimate to each other for a few weeks and then put them all back together but there will probably still be some fighting when you bring them all back together. You could also wait until winter when the day light drops below 10 hours a day and they stop crowing and laying eggs. They tend to be much more docile at that time of year. I hope that helps.
The 1 rooster to 5 hens is only a guide not a rule, rooster will cover the hens as he pleases obviously, that scalped hen was a favourite for the boys definitely her eggs will be good.
I am sorry but I am not sure what you are asking me. This is a very old video. If I referenced someone from Kansas selling quail I am afraid I don't know who that is now. Sorry about that.