Button Quails and Egg laying

[yarnlady]

My babies are laying eggs! 

I have three pet button quails, two females and one male. I keep them in a tall  guinea pig cage, indoors by an open window so they get some natural light. I live in South Florida so drafts and cold weather aren't a problem, but the cage is IMHO just barely big enough for the three of them. It provides them with a little more than 16" square inches of floor space each, counting the second level that they like to hop onto. They're all healthy and active and they never fight, so I'm assuming it's "fine" for the 3 of them. I was told that I needed to have two females to one male because their mating habits are so rough and it's easier on the females to have more than one of them around, but the male clearly prefers one female over the other and is only mating with the one.

About six days ago I discovered that the female with whom the male is mating laid an egg. Two days later, she laid another one, and she laid one more the next two days, then nothing yesterday, then one more today. She has five eggs total so far. I decided to leave them alone and see what would happen, figuring I'd just remove the eggs if they sat around for more than a week. I have read that buttons are very poor brooders, so I was surprised to see that my little hen is VERY broody - she dug out a little nest from the pine shavings in the corner of the cage, rolled the eggs into the dugout and partially covered them back up with the pine shavings. She's not really sitting on them, though. She has a little bit, and she hangs around them a lot and will go over there and turn the eggs and appear to be "checking" on them, but she isn't doing a lot of sitting on them yet. I suspect this is only because the clutch just isn't done yet and she's gonna lay a few more.

So now what? There's no way that cage can support eight (or more!) quails. I intend to keep a few of the females in a separate cage, and give the rest away to friends and family - but that will take weeks. If the eggs hatch, should I remove the adult female that isn't the mother and the male so they don't attack the babies?  Should I remove the babies and put them in the homemade brooder in which I raised the male? My house has an air conditioner running and it's always about 72 degrees in my house - far too cold for baby chicks, but I don't have much of a yard and the yard I do have has many, many stray cats.  Advice?

Also, does anyone know why only one female (the one with whom the male is mating) is laying eggs? Shouldn't they both be?

[yarnlady]

Well, my little egg-laying hen seems to have lost her broodiness, I think due to the fact that a few days ago the other female became overcome with jealousy about getting no attention from the male, and started harassing her constantly away from her eggs, so she started burying them in the pine shavings and straw combo that I lay down on their cage floor instead.  Now there are little batches of eggs buried all over the cage floor in the pine shavings. I am buying a new pen for her today and looking into getting her her own mate from the same farm I bought her from or possibly another female. :(  I have been letting the non-pair-bonded female wander around the apartment by herself and that does seem to calm her down and the pair seem much happier for it too.

How long do the eggs keep? Does anyone know? It's been about 10 days since she laid the first one and hasn't been sitting on them for at least a week. I would really like to let them raise their own chicks at least once or twice.  Should I just throw them all out and let them start over without the extraneous female?

[cjstuchlik]

For incubateing I usally only keep them for 7 to 10 days, after that they start lossing fertility.


Ks_frm_boy

[yarnlady]

No, I want them to raise their chicks themselves.  Thank you, though. I'm going to leave the eggs in there for another couple of days and see if she starts sitting on the clutch in the nest she dug out.

I had to separate the non-pair-bonded female into her own cage today. She was becoming increasingly vicious toward the pair-bonded female, even though they have plenty of space, food and water. She was so jealous she wasn't getting any attention from the male. She wouldn't let her sit on her eggs for a second and actually pinned her down and attacked her at one point.   I guess I will have to get her her own mate.