Coturnix Quail Basics- Information and Pictures Galore

[monarc23]

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hehe! thanks for the laugh!

 

[monarc23]

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it depends. some states you need a permit just to own them others you need a permit only if you sell/trade/give away. Annoying i Know! LOL!

I dont care. I will just smuggle them across the state borders

that's the spirit!

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

Lol! Hopefully I wont get pulled over and be asked to have my car searched

. I have some illegal contraband... Quails!

 

[monarc23]

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dun dun dunn! hopefully they wont know what they are and if they ask "oh they're a bantam breed of chicken ofcourse! "

 

[shelleyd2008]

Ok stupid question. How old do they need to be to sex them? My A&M's of course are impossible to know without sexing, and the button is all alone atm, so it would be hard to say.. And since these 3 are still inside, they should lay when they are old enough right?

Also (another stupid question

) if the button is female, she will lay even though there is no male atm right? I know chickens do, but wasn't sure how these guys did.

 

[monarc23]

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last question first, yep all quail will lay without a males presence..i thnk all birds will actually, hormones just tell them to.

You can sex browns and goldens at 4 weeks, others are harder to sex, you'll have to wait for the males to call, once they are calling even if you miss which one in the pen calls pick them all up and check out the vent if the upper partof the vent is swollen, lightly put your pointer and thumb on both sides of the swollen area and lightly (very lightly- light enough it wouldnt make a baby cry) and a white foam should come out....you will ONLy see this on a male and ONly when they are in breeding "season"....so that's why i say wait for them tocall the unique male call....once they sound you'll know they're in breeding mode...you could start hearing that as early as 6 weeks old. What I did after that was I took my males, and put a leg band on them (zipties on full grown adults is perfect--full grownt ath way they dont grow any more and over grow into teh ziptie) that way now that the newbies i got are outside and are getting out of breeding 'season" I'll still know which ones are malesb ecause when they aren't in breeding mode...the vent isnt swollen, and they dont do the courting call.

 

[Jessika]

Thanks for taking the time to share all this awesome info!!

 

[junebug7334]

i used to not even look at these post but thanks to you I am interested!

 

[shelleyd2008]

Yeah that's what I thought. We used to have a cockatiel when I was younger that was in with the budgies, she would lay eggs all the time and squawk about them all the time. Only cockatiel we ever had! Silly bird. As for the budgies, we had males and females, and never got any eggs! Course it would have probably helped if we had a nest box in there with them!

I still haven't figured out what color my button is. I think it is a normal brown one, but it has, and has had since day 1, a white bib under its chin.

Any ideas? It didn't have the racing stripes when it hatched, has just been brown. I will go and take a pic of it real quick, but this one can give you something to think about! Oh yeah, it was 3 days old in this pic.

 

[monarc23]

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you're very welcome, makes me so happy everyone seems to really appreciate it! It's like a free book huh hehe!