Cortunix Quail help with gender?

[pinoyathletics]

I have four quails in one of my pens. One is clearly male, brown chest and one is female laying egg.

These other two im not sure of. Would like to get some help identifying genders from photos.


Bird 1




Bird 2

 

[pinoyathletics]

The Rosetta one was a boy and so was the silver. The other 3 Manchurian and 2 browns are still unidentified. The Silver one after 8 weeks is now my biggest quail at 350 grams.

 

[JaeG]

They are both boys I'd say. Females should not show any rusty colour. It's best to not breed birds like this as it doesn't preserve the ability to easily visually sex these birds.

 

[le_bwah]

#1 and #4 you will likely have to wait and vent sex. Can't tell for the rest but that last one looks like a girl (spotty breast, no red). Within the next few weeks you should be able to sex them from behavior alone (boys crowing/mating, etc.).

 

[pinoyathletics]

#1 male, crowed no eggs, mating with other birds
#2 male, as above
#3-5 not sure possibly female, no foam coming out, not mating when i put a female in with the 3 of them in the cage, however nearly 10 weeks and still not laying eggs.

 

[pinoyathletics]

#1 and #2 have foam and are crowing

 

[pinoyathletics]

#1 is definitley a male as i seperated him, no eggs, and he crowed. I have now removed #2 to isolate if they lay eggs or not. #2 really hates #1 he drew blood on him so i had to put them both in seperate cages from rest of flock.

 

[pinoyathletics]

Here are some others from my other hutch. These should be easier to identify as they are lighter colors. I think #1 and 2 is male and #3 and #4 is female but would like other peoples opinions

Bird 1



Bird 2



Bird 3



Bird 4

 

[Erkenstein]

I agree with you, but since they are lighter than standard pharaoh feather sexing might not be as reliable.

 

[Sara L]

3 and 4 definitely look like females to me, 1 and 2 are probably males, but the speckling on the throat of 1 makes me less sure of that one. These look like the golden/Italian coloring, so males should have the solid colored reddish breast, but I have had some males who were a lot lighter in color on the chest and were harder to tell for sure.
How do they behave towards each other? If the males are sexually mature they will try to mount the females by grabbing the feathers at the back of the head and standing on their back.
Sometimes just watching them can help determine whether male/female if the feather color is unreliable.