combining differant ages

[tripleseven]

I have four individule growout pens for Bobwhite quail. In each pen the birds are a week apart in age. My question is can I move 8 week old quail to a large pen, then the following week move (then 8 wk olds) into a pen with now 9 wk olds. And so on and so on. Eventually, I would be introducing 8 week olds with 11 week olds. Will I run into any problems doing this? What about doing this at a slightly younger age, lets say combining 6,7,8 and 9 week olds together. Thanks for any help!

[Bloomingtongamebirds]

I have moved birds 3 weeks different in age and had no problems 6-3 weeks. I moved the older birds to the pen with the younger birds. These are jumbo bobwhites can say for anything else.

[Redhorse]

In a different thread someone said to move both age groups into the new pen at the same time. That way it's new to all of them, and less chance of them trying to defend their turf. Moving new birds into a pen with an established batch of birds could create dominance issues. It made sense to me, and is how I'll combine my upcoming hatches. :)

[TBA]

one time i had 30 bobs in mine flight pen and that were 12 week old and put some 8 week olds in there and it was all out war.. ended up in 13 deaths...... craziness

then i moved the others back out

[CharlieHorse]

I put 38, 4 week bobwhites in a flight pen with 8 older ones (12week-1 year) and the older ones were on the war path, the young ones had plenty of room to get away in such a large pen, except one mistake on my part.......since they were only 4 weeks old I had wooden box with a brooder bulb in it for heat, I didn't realize that I had left about a 2 inch gap between the box a the pen wall that was a dead end. The young ones got in there and started piling up, lost 14 the first night from them piling on top of each other.   The older ones never did do any harm to the young ones because there was plenty of room to get away, but after about 2 days they were all buddies and mixed together in their coveys.  So make sure that you don't have anyplace that they can pile on top of each other.

[CHARLIE]

I AGREE WITH ALL THE ABOVE. IF BY CHANCE I HAVE TO MIX TWO DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS I MOVE ALL OF THEM TO A NEW PEN AT THE SAME TIME, MOST OF THE TIME THIS STOPS THE WAR BUT NOT ALWAYS SOOOO BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU DO.
          CHARLIE
          BACKYARD GAMEBIRD FARM
          DELAWARE

[Fivehollers]

All great advice espically about moving them all at the same time; one m ore idea, debeak the older ones, this has worked for us and give plenty of stuff to peck at for a week or so.

[coveyrun]

Another way to keep the war to a minimum is to ra-arrange the pen a little put some pine tree branches in and maybe another feeder and waterer.
My pens are set up with sliding dividers so when I want to combine birds I do the above and then pull out the divider, I also will throw some lettuce or bread all over inside and it keeps them busy,,,,most of the time

[Redhorse]

I put a mesh devider in my brooder to keep the 3 week olds away from my new hatchlings. Now they are 4 week and 1 week. They have gotten mixed up on more than one occasion now, and I must confess...I'm not overly concerned about it anymore. The larger ones fly over the divider when I lift the lid on the brooder, and the little ones duck through the slots in the mesh I put at the bottom to share the feeder and waterer when I'm refilling them. They have never shown the first sign of any problems. I think the mesh divider enabled them to see the other birds and get used to them. They covey together at night and get along fine during the day. I think I would have only needed the divider for the first 3 days or so. :P