Do you need a quail cock? Not for eggs, only for chicks — and then one to three to five hens

Quail hens lay just as many eggs without a cock as with one — the cock has no influence on laying. Without him the eggs are unfertilised and just as good to eat; you only need a cock if you want to hatch chicks, and then one to about three to five hens. If all you want is eggs for the kitchen, a hen-only group without a cock is the calmest and quietest option.

Do hens lay without a cock?

Yes, and exactly as before. An egg forms in the hen regardless of whether a cock is sitting in the house; the cock only adds fertilisation. A hen-only group starts laying between the sixth and the tenth week of life, delivers about four to six eggs per hen per week at peak and roughly 200 to 300 eggs over a laying year — the same figures as with a cock.

The difference lies in the egg itself. An unfertilised egg never develops, no matter how warm it lies; a fertilised one does, as soon as it stays warm enough for long enough. For eating eggs that are stored cool and eaten soon, that makes no difference: taste, nutritional value and keeping quality do not differ in any way you would notice in the kitchen.

What the cock is actually for

For hatching eggs, and for nothing else. If you want chicks of your own, you need fertilised eggs, and those only come with a sexually mature cock in the group. After putting them together it takes a few days before the eggs are reliably fertilised.

Usable hatching eggs do not come from the first day either. The first eggs of a young hen are small and hatch poorly; in practice the usable window lies roughly between the third or fourth month of life and the end of the first laying period. With older cocks fertility drops while the hen still goes on laying well — one reason to replace the cock rather than the hens.

How many hens per cock

In practice a range of about three to five hens per cock has proved itself. Both directions have their price:

• Too few hens. The cock treads each hen too often. During mating he holds her by the neck, and the result is bare patches on the neck and back, in the worse case raw and bleeding skin.
• Too many hens. Some of the eggs stay unfertilised, which you only notice when candling during incubation.

A breeding group where fertility is all that matters is run tighter — more like two to four hens per cock. If you want to assign the offspring later, keep only one cock per group.

The noise

A quail cock calls loudly, harshly and in several syllables, usually in short series, above all in the early morning and at dusk — with light in the house earlier still, before the neighbours get up. The call is not a rooster's crow, but it carries, and it repeats. If you keep quail close to neighbours — terraced house, balcony, allotment — you are better off without a cock, or you talk to the neighbours first. Hens stick to quiet sounds: a trill, a short whistle, a ticking when excited.

The calls begin with the onset of sexual maturity, in practice from about the fifth to eighth week. They are no counter: a high-ranking cock calls a lot, lower-ranking ones can stay silent for days. One caller means at least one cock, not exactly one.

Several cocks in one group

If several sexually mature cocks sit within sight of the same hens, they fight, and these fights do not stop by themselves. They end with head injuries, with birds kept away from the feed, and with restless hens that lay worse. On top of that every hen is trodden by several cocks, and the bare necks come faster than with one cock and too few hens.

Two cocks in a small group almost never goes well. What sometimes works is one cock per group in separate compartments out of sight. If you want to keep surplus cocks, keep them as a cock-only group; without hens within reach such groups often stay peaceful, but not reliably.

When the cock is mature

Sexual maturity and fitness for breeding are two different things. The call starts from about the fifth to eighth week, and from then on the cock treads as well. Reliably fertilised eggs for incubation, however, only come some weeks later, when cock and hens are fully grown and the hens are laying steadily in size and rhythm — in practice roughly from the third month of life.

In wild-coloured birds a cock can be told by the evenly rust-brown breast without speckles, reliably from about the fourth to sixth week; in solid colour varieties the call and the vent check decide.

What becomes of surplus cocks

That is the question every hatch asks, because roughly as many cocks turn up as hens. If you get ten cocks from twenty chicks and need one, you have nine too many — and the decision about them belongs before the eggs go into the incubator.

• Passing them on to other keepers. Demand is small, because everyone who hatches has the same problem; a cock from an unrelated line, though, is very much in demand among breeders who want to avoid inbreeding.
• Keeping them separately as a cock-only group. Costs space and feed, brings no eggs and is rarely the solution in the long run.
• Slaughtering. In most flocks this is the usual way. If you do not want that, you are better off buying hens straight away instead of chicks or hatching eggs. What is required in the way of competence, notification and disposal is regulated differently by federal state and district; your veterinary office has the information, and the first time you have someone who can do it show you.

Whether a cock sits in the house is in the end a decision about what you want: eggs or chicks. If you want both, keep the breeding group small and the laying group without a cock — and note for each group which cock joined it and when.