Urgent quail advice needed

22 May 2011, 11:43

I need some advice urgently. We have 3 families of quails in different aviaries. One had 4 chicks that hatched. over the last few days, two of the chicks have disappeared. The first time I thought I had miscounted, this time we know for sure. We want to save the two remaining chicks. We know mice are definitely getting in that cage but think the other two aviaries are ok. What would happen if we were to move mum and the two chicks in an aviary with another mum and chicks? are the mums likely to fight? or hurt the chicks from the other clutch? one dad has already been relocated, and can easily move the other one too.
Thank you for any advice, I do want to save the other two chicks, especially the surviving cinnamon one...

22 May 2011, 11:52

i've found that with 2 hens in the same aviary that some hens will attack the other babies, and each other, but also the chicks will get confused and run between mums and end up getting too cold! have you got a spare cage? if so i'd pull mum out and put her and the 2 remaining babies in that, maybe even your hospital box if you can... that was a decent size from memory. sorry to hear about the little ones

22 May 2011, 12:04

Thanks Spanna. We are reshuffling everything at the moment as we also don't want to lose the YH chicks. Hubby thinks it might not be a mouse as there would be remains, and is worried about a snake...
Don't want to lose any more birds so will put them in a spare cage to avoid any bloodshed.

22 May 2011, 12:07

i would say it's most likely mice. a snake would be a bit dumb to be out and about in weather like this, much too cold for them i would think. what you might find has happened is that the chick wandered off at night, or just before dark, got a bit cold and when it was weak a rodent moved in for an easy meal. if there are no remains that would be my most likely guess.

22 May 2011, 13:13

Mystery solved. The chicks got stuck between two metal panels and that is how they died. Just found them as we were clearing out the cage... so the good news is that the mice are not getting them (although we are certain the previously got to the gouldians' eggs). The sad news that if we had found the first chick a couple of days ago, the other one would still be here...

22 May 2011, 13:18

sorry Flap

22 May 2011, 16:10

Thats no good .

26 May 2011, 23:59

My aviary is 15cm off the ground with 12mm mesh and I lost a couple of babies simply because they squeezed through the mesh and fell out, unable to get back in. New baby quails are mostly fluff and much smaller than they appear. I put some lengths of wood around the bottom to stop this which was successful because by the time they are big enough to climb over, they are too big to get through the mesh.

Glad you worked out what was happening with yours.

27 May 2011, 08:43

thanks fishdance. I swapped two clutches of quails around between aviaries so all the tiny ones are now safe...

27 May 2011, 15:51

Sorry for the loss of your little ones Flap. Just for future reference, if you ever in a bind in future and the young chicks are about the same age, you can try give them all to one hen/pair. I've done so in the past successfully and you can quickly see if they are accepted or not. just add one chick at a time to the aviary and they don't know the difference.

It could just be my crazy setup - I really think my birds reflect me! I also have my youngin's sit under my fruit doves to get warm, weird thing is the doves allow it.