quails have eggs again

[Matt.D]

Hi all,
I am having good & bad luck with our quails....
1st lot 4 hatched out from 8 eggs, unfortunetely a mouse got in and we lost all of them. Fixed that problem for good quick smart.
2nd lot only 1 egg hatched out of 9, checked the other 8, all infertile.
3rd lot had 17 eggs, 8 hatched out this morning, 4 normal/4 silver, will check at end of day tomorrow to see if any more, expecting a couple of losses.
4th lot currently sitting on 13 eggs, still another week to go roughly........
Touch wood we have some luck with the current & future chicks. I have noticed today when one of the chicks lost its way from mum it got picked on by other fully grown quails quite a bit, so just put it back over with the group.....

[spanna]

adult quails will pick on any young that aren't theirs, some will even pick on young that are theirs. so one pair per aviary usually, unless an aviary is HUGE i've got aviaries that are 6x3 and i only have one pair per aviary, just to make sure there's no aggression. keep an eye on the father to make sure he isn't attacking any young, that can often be the cause of some deaths. i've also found that quails are quite good at physically losing young if the aviary is large and they are new to breeding. the young quails just get left behind and lose body heat quickly so you can put the young and the hen (and possibly the cock if he's a good father) in a small pen in a corner of the aviary with small dishes of food and water to minimise chances of this happening.
hope some of that may help...

[finchbreeder]

Silver and Cinnamon are both recessive to Normal. So it sounds like most of us have quail that are splits. Not unusual. My Cinnamon hen/Silver cock combination just hatched 2 yesterday in 40 degrees. Suspect the others got cooked before they made it out. Had been at the stage of thinking nothing was going to happen. They have been very fidgety, this is nest 4. And no hatchings from previous, just deserted them too soon. These 2 are still fine today. Think she thought she should stay with her brother, who is in the next cage and that is why she was not settling with her mate.
LML

[Jayburd]

sorry beg to differ Spanna,
I have 3pr in one aviary and have had for the last 4 years... always fine, never piked on anyone! in fact, the others will help if they're free

[spanna]

well there ya go! i've always had bad experiences with more than one pair per aviary. even a trio of 2 hens one cock didn't work out. the hens picked on each others young. can only judge on what i've experienced!

[Jayburd]

haha lol I had a trio that the hens sat on the same nest! hatched and raised chicks together too! bit cramped on the nest though, but they are both stubborn!

[Diane]

Im thinking of putting 2 hens (one silver one normal) per aviary (three aviaries) and keeping one normal cock bird and just putting him in the hens every now and then.
Any thoughts on that setup?

[Jayburd]

can be done, easier but often the male has to mate several times and it's had to judge when he's done.

[finchbreeder]

And you may discover that not just male quail call for mates. The boys are just noisier.
LML

[Jayburd]

haha lol you should have heard my hen when her (fledged) chick was sold! I didn't sleep for days! ended up looking something like this and almost bought her little boy back!