Butchered some quail that I thought were roos, turned out be hens...

[koturnix]

So a while ago I ordered a bunch of jumbo brown quail eggs online, eggs arrived, hatched them etc etc.
At 2 weeks it looked to be 85% males hatched maybe. At 12 weeks it was a bit hard to tell as only a few of them had chests that were fully bright orange and bib, the rest had some bright orange with a few speckles (but not full on speckles like my previous brown hens, it was more like a broken pattern). I butchered a bunch that I was pretty sure were roos as they were crowing. The ones I butchered had testicles (like rice grains - super tiny compared to previous processed roos).

I kept a group that I was not sure on just to be safe. They had the exactly same feather pattern as the group of confirmed butchered roos. No crowing so I thought they were maybe hens...

They never laid eggs. I checked their feed to make sure the protein was right, provided supplemental lighting, made sure they had adequate overhead shelter, calcium etc etc
No eggs at all!

So at 9 months I decide to start with a new batch from a different source and butcher these quail. What do I find? Egg sacs inside. Arggghh!!!

Perhaps this batch was extra jumpy and I couldn't get the conditions quite right but my previous batches were fine!

Has anyone ever hatched female quail that absolutely refused to lay eggs whatsoever?

 

[muddy75]

So a while ago I ordered a bunch of jumbo brown quail eggs online, eggs arrived, hatched them etc etc.
At 2 weeks it looked to be 85% males hatched maybe. At 12 weeks it was a bit hard to tell as only a few of them had chests that were fully bright orange and bib, the rest had some bright orange with a few speckles (but not full on speckles like my previous brown hens, it was more like a broken pattern). I butchered a bunch that I was pretty sure were roos as they were crowing. The ones I butchered had testicles (like rice grains - super tiny compared to previous processed roos).

I kept a group that I was not sure on just to be safe. They had the exactly same feather pattern as the group of confirmed butchered roos. No crowing so I thought they were maybe hens...

They never laid eggs. I checked their feed to make sure the protein was right, provided supplemental lighting, made sure they had adequate overhead shelter, calcium etc etc
No eggs at all!

So at 9 months I decide to start with a new batch from a different source and butcher these quail. What do I find? Egg sacs inside. Arggghh!!!

Perhaps this batch was extra jumpy and I couldn't get the conditions quite right but my previous batches were fine!

Has anyone ever hatched female quail that absolutely refused to lay eggs whatsoever?

Yes this tends to happen from time to time......It sounds to me as if they matured after seasons changed and lighting, etc decreased and there were too many males adding to the stress. Once the Roos were gone, there may have been additional stressors????? They may have eventually started laying given time after removal of external stressors but maybe not. Sometimes a fresh start can be the answer, but you may want to look for additional contributing factors such as potential predators, home environment (space, hideaways, etc) prior to new batch maturing.

 

[americanchicks]

I am new to quail myself. I have a small flock of 5. I have one quail that has a beautiful olive egg. She is 4 months old and has only laid once.

 

[koturnix]

Yes this tends to happen from time to time......It sounds to me as if they matured after seasons changed and lighting, etc decreased

That is absolutely correct, they hatched at end of summer so maturation was around end of oct/november. I'll try to time my hatches around spring time next round!

 

[MadamContrary]

Yes, I hatched out some this past fall that came into maturity as the daylight was becoming shorter. This spring I separated them into several new pens based off feather sexing the obvious males, and the suspected males based off a small vent, or presence of foam. I think the housing change stressed them out and delayed things further. I was convinced 3 of my jumbo browns were males because they had a lot of rust and cream and just a few speckles at the very top of the breast. This was my first hatch with that coloring and I was not aware that the females could have warm tones on the breast, my previous wild type coloring was the cooler tone with the more white breast feather with very defined, darker speckles. I didn't figure it out until they were about 6 months old, I was doing a full muck out of the ground pens for compost and found a little cache of eggs under a hidey hut. Did another round of vent checks and it was all three jumbo browns.

 

[koturnix]

Yes, I hatched out some this past fall that came into maturity as the daylight was becoming shorter. This spring I separated them into several new pens based off feather sexing the obvious males, and the suspected males based off a small vent, or presence of foam. I think the housing change stressed them out and delayed things further. I was convinced 3 of my jumbo browns were males because they had a lot of rust and cream and just a few speckles at the very top of the breast. This was my first hatch with that coloring and I was not aware that the females could have warm tones on the breast, my previous wild type coloring was the cooler tone with the more white breast feather with very defined, darker speckles. I didn't figure it out until they were about 6 months old, I was doing a full muck out of the ground pens for compost and found a little cache of eggs under a hidey hut. Did another round of vent checks and it was all three jumbo browns.

This is highly interesting! I recall my past batches that I hatched between the months of March-June were laying eggs at 6 weeks like clockwork!

Yes the coloring definitely threw me off, my previous hens (eggs bought off ebay) also had the cooler tones on the chest so it was very obvious they were female early on. By any chance were the eggs from your batch from James Marie Farms/Southwest gamebirds? I recall reading the broken pattern/warmer chest tones on females is genetic so I might go with another supplier for eggs for my next batch to avoid future confusion. Or purchase fully mature hens locally so I know exactly how the hens will look patternwise in that specific batch.

 

[MadamContrary]

This is highly interesting! I recall my past batches that I hatched between the months of March-June were laying eggs at 6 weeks like clockwork!

Yes the coloring definitely threw me off, my previous hens (eggs bought off ebay) also had the cooler tones on the chest so it was very obvious they were female early on. By any chance were the eggs from your batch from James Marie Farms/Southwest gamebirds? I recall reading the broken pattern/warmer chest tones on females is genetic so I might go with another supplier for eggs for my next batch to avoid future confusion. Or purchase fully mature hens locally so I know exactly how the hens will look patternwise in that specific batch.

My jumbos came from a terrible company called Hatch Poultry, I believe they were bought out by another company, but no exactly sure. The reason I incubated so late in the year was actually because it took them several months to send the eggs! They also said they'd send me a free 60 count of eggs for the inconveniences, bit that never happened either lol.

It's definitely made me rethink when to incubate though, I did like having time to work with the birds before hormonal issues set it, but feeding them all winter and not getting eggs is not very cost effective. Also the risk of power outages are lower in my area during fall, but I think supplemental lighting might be a good idea if I did do another fall incubation.

 

[FloorCandy]

My jumbos came from a terrible company called Hatch Poultry, I believe they were bought out by another company, but no exactly sure. The reason I incubated so late in the year was actually because it took them several months to send the eggs! They also said they'd send me a free 60 count of eggs for the inconveniences, bit that never happened either lol.

It's definitely made me rethink when to incubate though, I did like having time to work with the birds before hormonal issues set it, but feeding them all winter and not getting eggs is not very cost effective. Also the risk of power outages are lower in my area during fall, but I think supplemental lighting might be a good idea if I did do another fall incubation.

I hatched all winter and used supplemental lighting and everyone layed.

This isn’t just to madam contrary, its a general warning about this company. There’s a thread on here about hatch poultry, bleh, they’re just the worst. I think @Ravenlover ordered eggs and got the run around, and finally got a box of mediocre eggs which were “rare variety” and I think they hatched out pharaohs haha, super rare. Someone else ordered some, maybe @NY Coturnix and I think they got some loose batteries in the box, maybe even twice with a reship, and the battery broke a bunch of eggs, and I think the rest was poor hatch rate and not rare.

I contacted them to ask for photos of their red layers and coal layers, they put me off for several days, not at their desk, need to get new pics etc, and I never got any pics of the red eggs, and there are none on the site, but they’re happy to take your order. They gave me a description of the eggs, saying they are more of a dark red/brown, so I’m thinking they send you eggs from layers with heavy brown patterns and call it red. The only photos of the coal layer eggs were in black and white! How can you send someone a b&w photo of gray looking eggs? I can take a pic of my celadon eggs, turn it b&w, and call it coal, but that doesn’t make it true.

When I lived in Brooklyn my slumlord building management company changed names every year or 2 to stay ahead of liability, I assume hatch has done the same, but claims they were bought out. Their site seems to suggest they are a group of unrelated farms cooperatively filling orders, and claims they are super popular in Canada, but we have many Canadian members, and I’ve only heard of Americans having dealt with them, so again, they’re full of lies.

if you want a variety pack, I recommend southwest gamebirds. I know there was talk about different styles of pharaoh being harder to sex, so If you want birds that are super easy to sex, order sex links they’re great! I sell tons of sex links locally and people are so happy when they can tell exactly what they have right from the start.

 

[MadamContrary]

I hatched all winter and used supplemental lighting and everyone layed.

This isn’t just to madam contrary, its a general warning about this company. There’s a thread on here about hatch poultry, bleh, they’re just the worst. I think @Ravenlover ordered eggs and got the run around, and finally got a box of mediocre eggs which were “rare variety” and I think they hatched out pharaohs haha, super rare. Someone else ordered some, maybe @NY Coturnix and I think they got some loose batteries in the box, maybe even twice with a reship, and the battery broke a bunch of eggs, and I think the rest was poor hatch rate and not rare.

I contacted them to ask for photos of their red layers and coal layers, they put me off for several days, not at their desk, need to get new pics etc, and I never got any pics of the red eggs, and there are none on the site, but they’re happy to take your order. They gave me a description of the eggs, saying they are more of a dark red/brown, so I’m thinking they send you eggs from layers with heavy brown patterns and call it red. The only photos of the coal layer eggs were in black and white! How can you send someone a b&w photo of gray looking eggs? I can take a pic of my celadon eggs, turn it b&w, and call it coal, but that doesn’t make it true.

When I lived in Brooklyn my slumlord building management company changed names every year or 2 to stay ahead of liability, I assume hatch has done the same, but claims they were bought out. Their site seems to suggest they are a group of unrelated farms cooperatively filling orders, and claims they are super popular in Canada, but we have many Canadian members, and I’ve only heard of Americans having dealt with them, so again, they’re full of lies.

if you want a variety pack, I recommend southwest gamebirds. I know there was talk about different styles of pharaoh being harder to sex, so If you want birds that are super easy to sex, order sex links they’re great! I sell tons of sex links locally and people are so happy when they can tell exactly what they have right from the start.

It was definitely a cooperative of sorts because at one point they asked me if I wanted to be a "partner" when they started offering chicken eggs as well. I saved all the extra long, excuse filled emails from them. All contacts are dead ends now so I assumed they failed when the said another company would be filling all future orders. I had originally ordered "German pastels" from them and got a mixed bag with a few silvers, Italian gold's, and a rouge dilute ( which pleasantly turned out to be a Celedon layer). So that's why I placed a second order for jumbos, they claimed to have perfected the over 1lb lines. The eggs were tiny, so I contacted them right away because I figured an XL bird would lay at least slightly larger eggs, they said it was genetics and not egg size that determines bird size. I'm no expert but, I select larger eggs and hatch larger birds the three remaining jumbo hens are bigger than everyone else but not by that much.

 

[Jamhard]

So a while ago I ordered a bunch of jumbo brown quail eggs online, eggs arrived, hatched them etc etc.
At 2 weeks it looked to be 85% males hatched maybe. At 12 weeks it was a bit hard to tell as only a few of them had chests that were fully bright orange and bib, the rest had some bright orange with a few speckles (but not full on speckles like my previous brown hens, it was more like a broken pattern). I butchered a bunch that I was pretty sure were roos as they were crowing. The ones I butchered had testicles (like rice grains - super tiny compared to previous processed roos).

I kept a group that I was not sure on just to be safe. They had the exactly same feather pattern as the group of confirmed butchered roos. No crowing so I thought they were maybe hens...

They never laid eggs. I checked their feed to make sure the protein was right, provided supplemental lighting, made sure they had adequate overhead shelter, calcium etc etc
No eggs at all!

So at 9 months I decide to start with a new batch from a different source and butcher these quail. What do I find? Egg sacs inside. Arggghh!!!

Perhaps this batch was extra jumpy and I couldn't get the conditions quite right but my previous batches were fine!

Has anyone ever hatched female quail that absolutely refused to lay eggs whatsoever?

We just processed out a batch of 6. One was a female with eggs, one was a male with testicles and the other four didn’t have eggs or testicles. Very confused right now