Alright, this is just getting old

[AK_Button_Mama]

Quote:
Hey I thought XX was female and XY was male....if I am right then why would NO amount of light help them lay a egg or was this just a typo?


EDIT:
yeah I looked it up XY is male (I always rememeber this cause the bottom of the Y looks like a winkie!!!)

 

[jvls1942]

a "winkie" ???????

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
Hey I thought XX was female and XY was male....if I am right then why would NO amount of light help them lay a egg or was this just a typo?


EDIT:
yeah I looked it up XY is male (I always rememeber this cause the bottom of the Y looks like a winkie!!!)

The sex chromosomes of birds is 'z'. The poster just simplified it and used 'x'. Female birds are ZW, males are ZZ. So if, the other person stated, the buttons are of the 'xx' (or zz) persuasion, this would make them all males, hence no eggs.

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v2/n3/full/embor459.html

Mammals sex genes are 'x' and 'y', not in avians.

 

[Bettacreek]

Why can't things just be simple? Lol. Thanks for that, I just learned something new.

 

[gypsy2621]

My buttons and coturnx are under the aquarium light, which really never goes off for more than a few hours a night.
Coturnix are laying like the evil little feather dusters they are but the buttons stopped shortly after the last chicken swap., couldnt figure out why.
hurumph , grand daughter informed me the other night the buttons would lay any more eggs. I asked why?
LOL she says cause they are all males,lol.
I kept what I thought were young hens, ( no bibs then) nope bibs are in I had kept 5 roos

oh well they are cute in the finch cages.

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
as Larry the Cable Guy would say.
"Now that's funny, I don't care who you are."

 

[Bossroo]

Yup, I posted the xx because that has been the norm that most people are used to for male in birds. The correct term is ZZ for male birds, and ZW for female birds. I hope that this discussion helps in the learning process.

 

[shelleyd2008]

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That stinks, for future reference, no bib does not always mean female. The males, and only the males, will have red or pink vent feathers. The females don't get these. So unless the birds are white or pied, you can tell the sex of buttons that way.
Oh, and bibs doesn't always mean male either. A double factor silver hen would have a bib just like a male.

 

[Akane]

Everyone says more light but actually my first buttons of the new generation to start laying had no light over their cage. They were the ones in the dark cause I wasn't concerned about getting eggs from them. What got mine to lay was higher protein food. I mixed in some 42% dog food to make a 30% feed and 2 weeks later I heard all sorts of commotion from the button pens. Went in to find every male going after the hens and had to do some mixing and matching to get everyone happy with their cage mates. 2 days after that eggs and then more eggs and more eggs. I'd actually lowered the light on most pens cause it wasn't doing any good so they were getting 12hrs again instead of 16.

My buttons sit in my living room. Everyone walks past them. Occasionally the dog goes flying around the room. The cats stand on the top of the pens or tap at the glass. My buttons lay and they rarely hit the top of the pens. They do get used to things and I found if you put a light over them it seems to provide a barrier they don't want to hit. Without a light they'll just spook up repeatedly but with a light directly over them they'll learn to actually hover just shy of the top.

 

[PacsMan]

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So, (gasp) You're saying quail have no Winkies?!?