Aussie Finch Forum

Was disgusted to see 10 baby quail turn on 1 little one today .
By the time I noticed the episode the poor little things back was wide open and the others were picking at its open wound .

Its on its own now but I gotta tell you these quail aint so cute any more .

Thats no good.
Why would this happen

Harv

Good question Harv . I thought the parents were the ones to watch for aggression

Deb,
Pretty common in ground livers, chooks do the same, especially in crowded situations, survival of the fittest. I think that it could be related to protein. Just my thoughts.

Matcho.

They have gone from cute and fluffy to blood thirsty savages . Feeding time is fluff frenzy and yet they have abundant food in chook crumbles and have access to the seed containers .

They can shred a cabbage leaf in minutes and boiled eggs are eaten shell and all . Not impressed with them at all

Not a problem we've had.

Is there plenty of low cover for them?
We've bunches of hedge trimmings on the ground (from a Lleyton Green hedge) and they get lost in there.
Just a thought....

They have a bushy corner to hide in with lots of dried upright grasses . Plenty of food /water . Nice dry aviary . They are canibals

I've never seen that happen with babies - how old are they? Older ones can be brutal to each other. I find them a pain as you can't keep them together in small holding cages without them ripping each other apart. And then when someone wants a pair I can't catch the buggers in a large aviary.

I've only got one old pair now, who I thought were past breeding. But recently I counted 8 (could be more) of them, so seems they're not geriatrics yet!

They hatched 6/Nov sooo 3 and a bit weeks .
This is the first and last time with quail for me , not liking birds that act like that .

Harv was keen to get a pair of kings but after reading the post i think we will wait

Brett