Feather loss on some of the quails (newbie)
Hello guys,
I'm new to quails and have 7 (6 hens, 1 roo) since about 2 weeks.
When I bought them, some had some missing feathers, but I thought it must be normal.
They live in an aviary (around 3 square meter, 2 meters high - so plenty of space), and seem quite happy. The previous owner held around 20 quails on an enclosure maybe of the same size - I thought, that might be a reason for why some of them have missing feathers.
Now since they live at mine, since 2 weeks, some of them even got worse. The worst is probably the one on the photo.
3 of them have missing feathers on the back, and some of them also miss some feathers on the head.
I have heard of moulting, but actually have no idea what that looks like.
In the first couple of days, they laid around 5-6 eggs each day. After a week or so, that started to drop, now they only lay around 1-2 eggs.
I tried to check them for mites, or anything else I could see, but they really don't like to be touched.
Is this normal?
What could cause it (is it moulting)?
How long will that go?
And can I do something to help them?