Dead quail!

[Nate F.]

Hi everyone, I just found 6 dead quail and I'm wondering why they died.  I had 31 coturnix in a cage 2 feet by 8 feet by one foot high.  According to the internet and the people I got them from, that should be plenty of room.  They are 5 weeks old right now.  The cage is 2 feet off the ground and the bottom is 1/2 inch hardwire.  I guesss what I'm wondering is if they would have killed eachother??  There was blood all over the cage so it looked like there had been a fight of some kind.  I don't see how it could have been a small predator because only 6 were dead and there cage is right beside my chukars and my pheasants and none of them were wounded.  Of the dead, 3 were males and 3 were females this makes me doubt that they killed eachother because I think they would only kill males?  Another thing is that yesterday I saw a crow fly out from under the cage.  I didn't worry about it because we have crows here all the time and I figured he was just eating their spilled food.  When I took out the deads I saw that the parts of them that had been lying on the wire had been pecked a lot so I now know that the crow was scavenging them but I don't know how he could have killed them.  If anyone could help that would be great!  I really don't want this to happen again!
-Nate

[kingwolf]

i know in some cases when there is overcrowding in a cage they will sometimes kill each-other and that fact that there was three males and three females was just probably a coincidence because i have had males kill females and vice versa but i wouldn't take a chance with the crow i haven't known them to kill other birds but i believe they are opportunists and will do anything when given the chance and now that hey have eaten some the the dead quail they will be back potentially stressing out the rest of them, so i would eliminate the crow even if he was the problem starter     

[Nate F.]

Ok thanks.  I'm pretty sure it the crow.  we came home and there was another one dead with wounds on the bottom so I covered the bottom with cloth and blocked it off.  So they should be good until I can  the darn crow!

[TENNESSERED]

I ran into a simular problem a couple of months ago when I made a new cage.  I also used 1/2 inch hardware cloth which I thought would make it impossible for any preditors to get at my quail.  I was wrong.  RAts that live out in the woods came and at night would kill the quail from underneith.  I solved the problem by attaching standard 1"chicken cloth on the bottom of the floor frame.  This has kept the rats from returning and killing any other birds.  I am learning to never underestimate my local preditors!