Coturnix Quail Pics added - M or F ??????

Crazy4Chicks

Songster
12 Years
Nov 20, 2007
1,722
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Glendale, AZ
here are my 5 week old Quail - I need help finding Ms and Fs since most of these go to the zoo tomorrow I am only keeping 1 male and 4 female here -- I have 9 more quail I have not taken pics of but I can if there are more males in this group --

they all look the same to me -- I have no clue who is who - I do have about 4 that are doing the " call thing " I am guessing only males do that ???

I do have one in this group with a badly bent neck been that way since hatching --

also have a white one - cant tell M or F

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bent neck chick

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any help will be great -- sorry pics are not the best my DH takes really really BAD pics LOL
 
Kinda hard to see, but if the breasts are mostly solid with rust coloring on them, those are the males. The females have speckles on their breasts. Only the males make those calls. The females will chirp or make cricket-type sounds. At 5 weeks their coloring might not yet be fully developed so go by the sounds.
 
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the pictures are fine by the way it's just that some oclors you cannot tell the sex by looking
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If they are crowing they are roos, but theres other calls these birds make "yelking" that both roos and hens do. Please visit my edcuation post to learn your colors and how to sex them, and I even have videos on there of roos crowing: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=102281
 
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most of my quail have a brown/rust color to the chest - but only a couple or doing this wierd " crow " almost sounds like they are crowing under water LOL

strange sound but its pretty cool LOL

I really need an easy way to sex these guys - since they are leaving tomorrow and I have to make sure I have my male and at least 4 females.


I guess I will just pick a few and cross my fingers and hope I have the right ones lol
 
First time I heard it I almost jumped out of my skin! Now I'm used to it but it sounds like "look at MEEEEE". Those are the boys. If they have rust and no sprinkles or very few, assume they are males. No rust and lots of sprinkles - those are the girls. Good luck!
 
I took a look in the second cage that has about 9 quail and saw a few that have LOTS of spots on the front - so I am taking one of the bigger males my DH has named Big bird and 3 females from the other group and the rest are heading to the zoo later this afternoon.


how can I tell on the lighter cream colored chick if its a M or F ? also since that one was born with a badly bent neck - is this a birth defect that will pass to chicks ? or something that happened at hatch ? when he/she hatched the neck was fine it did not start to get the bend until a week after hatch.

anyway to tell on white ones if they are M or F ?
 
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<----did you go to my link? It explains how. That link has just about everything you'll need ot know about coturnix. Plus I explained a bit about it in thep ost above. Roos that are breeding age will have a swollen vent which foam will come out of. That's the ONLY way to tell on colors other than brown and golden in coturnix.
 
Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/NDG/Quail/JapQ/BRKJapQ.html

If
you scroll down, there's a side-by-side... the females have a little bit of rust color, but mostly speckles. The males are mostly solid rust. And of course, if you can catch one crowing, that's a male.
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The A&Ms are nearly impossible to tell until they lay or crow, or if you catch them doing their thing.
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theres also plenty of male female comparisons on my site in the link provided above.


Here:

Sexing

Sexing chicks can sometimes be challenging, but in browns and goldens, it's sometimes easy to sex them at 3-4 weeks old just simply by taking a gander at thier breast feathers. These chicks are 3 weeks and 1 day old and it's extremely easy to see who's male and who's female in my batch so hopefully this gives you guys a vantage point for your own batches:

Male (note the rusty color coming in):
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Female (note the obvious spots with no rust coloring):
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VENT SEXING: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=150049


You
can sex males by breast colors in the normal browns, and in some other colors listening for their calls or vent sexing may be needed.

Male coturnix CROWING:


In vent sexing the males will have a small pimple like bump...hens will not. Also the males you can actually press your fingers lightly together near the upper vent and if a white foam (almost looks like foam mousse) comes out that is a male...this substance isn't sperm, however it aids the sperm when breeding.
Foam substance (please note that you will ONLY get this foam when the birds are in breeding season..otherwise you'll just get a spit-like substance that I have learned is NOT the foam even the hens can express this spit substance so it's not a good way to sex...also these males that are in breeding season will have swollen bottoms):
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Normal wild colored males (and goldens) will have a red (rusty) breast simliar to a male american robins breast....the hens will have a speckled breast (similar to a female american robins breast). Oddly enough, american robins are also a good size comparison with the normal wild (pharoah) coturnix quails size- except robins weigh less. Examples:
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Male on left, hen on right

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^ Two males

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^ Hen on left male on right (bad photo, they were in a molt).

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Male golden

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^ Young hen golden on right, unsure of the sex on the golden on the left as it's almost white instead of golden.
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Note the speckled breast on the golden hen just as on the brown hen.

Other colors are very hard to tell visually by feathers, however a breeder I talk to seems to think that Tibetans (british range) coturnix's can be sexed at an early-adult age by the color of their beaks. Supposedly she has come to realize that all her dark beaked tibetans are males, where as her lighter beaks tibetans are hens. Theres no documented proof of this though.

I do believe this theory above to be true....as here is a male---note the BLACK beak:
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This is a hen tibe note the very dull colored beak not a bold black:
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