Yesterday, one of the quail died. It was first one that I ever hatched, the female who I originally named Hatchepsut, but who later became known as Mama after she became broody and raised a clutch of babies for me.
She didn’t appear to be sick; I just went out and found her dead in the pen. I looked her over, and couldn’t find any signs of trauma or injury either, so I’m suspecting perhaps the online experts are right that the average life expectancy of a quail is 2-3 years. Mama would have been three, this Spring. I have four other quail the same age, so I’m keeping a closer eye on them, but so far everything seems normal.
The difficult thing is that now I have a solitary male again, my white quail, Peabody. He’s a problem. Really, he’s always been a problem. I had to take out his other females because he was being mean to them; Mama was the only female he got along with. I was hoping he’d die first, and then I could have just shifted her to one of the other male’s cages. I can’t put two males together.
So right now, he’s by himself, and not very happy about it. I’d consider hatching him out some more females in the Spring, but with his past tendecies of being mean to girls, I really don’t want to keep him in my colonies. Plus, I’d never really intended to have three separate colonies of quail, and would love to downsize a little bit. Sigh. I may just have to cull him, which makes me sad because because he is such a little personality.
Out of Eden 
It is always hard to cull the troublesome males, but flock harmony makes it worth it.
I totally agree. I was really close to culling him earlier, but then he was getting on so well with mama quail, I took pity on him.
I agree, part of breeding also is considering the character, quail should remain social and keep a kind of harmony within the group. This is what I aim to reproduce, letting the troublesome ones out of the breeding program.