I'm not sure what the black one is - when I was searching threads yesterday someone had something similar and it ended up being a very dark Tibetan. But someone else suggested there is also the possibility of black marking genes being double expressed - is that the black dummy? There is a second chick that is very similar but he has gray-ish markings and his wing tips are colored in addition to his face. They are both noticeably much darker than the others - even my housemates pointed it out and asked why they were so different LOL
Thanks! I was looking at all these chicks and had a flashback to my reptile group on facebook. Ball pythons have soooooooo many morphs and to the untrained eye they all look veeerry similar. I'm a fish gal - I can tell 3 almost identical tetras apart but I'm new to domestic quail. I need to start sorting them so I can sell the ones I'm not keeping sooner rather than later so my brooder isn't too crowded. The weather has been really unpredictable this year, so they're in the laundry room brooder instead of outside in the side yard brooder, and it is a little cramped for 40+ coturnix and 5 button quail chicks.
My family is going to be sad about A losing his striking markings. That's the one they liked the most. They call him Penguin. I figured C and D were the same but I wasn't sure because with the buttons my lighter chicks of the same color ended up being a completely different color when they feathered out.
And thanks! I had 60 from the auction and 20 from some eggs I purchased on ebay (about a month prior to the auction I'd purchased them and felt too bad about it cancel so I just had a LOT of eggs). USPS crunched some eggs, my automatic turner crunched some jumbo eggs before I put them in the chicken sized one, there were a handful of infertile ones and 1 early quitter/dud. I put 64 into lockdown and about 50-ish hatched.
Unfortunately, I lost the tail end of the hatch to an incubator failure over Easter while I was at family's

so I lost a bunch (the snake is having the time of his life so I don't feel as bad about losing the littles - at least their bad luck was another's fortune) and have 1 iffy wry neck one I assisted out. I'm giving the remaining eggs today to hatch but I think they are done. I like to do egg-topsies, so I want to give enough time there are no bloody surprises, yikes.
Meanwhile, I have 52 gambel's quail eggs sitting on the dining room table waiting to go in the incubator

Most aren't going to be viable (parents got freaked out by the weather/storms and abandoned the nests) but I'm hoping for a handful those those guys. I also have 3 chicks momma button hatched and 7 juvenile buttons in the outdoor brooder that are feathering out enough to be sexed so I can hopefully rehome them soon. There are quail and eggs everywhere!