Feather sexing quail help

[Alwaysfowlplay]

Hey all, my jumbo Cortunix are 2 weeks old which I know is on the earlier side of feather sexing but they seem to have most of their feathers. I believe I have 5 girls and 1 boy. Would anyone care to check and share your thoughts. If I don’t have a boy I would like to order eggs ASAP due to the long wait times, but if I have at least 1 boy I’m planning to breed from that stock for now. Thank you!

 

[Nabiki]

#5 is definitely a boy. The others look like they might be girls, but I've seen some with spotty chests at two week develop red. #1 is especially uncertain since the middle feathers haven't come in yet.

 

[Alwaysfowlplay]

#5 is definitely a boy. The others look like they might be girls, but I've seen some with spotty chests at two week develop red. #1 is especially uncertain since the middle feathers haven't come in yet.

Thank you! #5 is who I was thinking was a definite boy also. I will hold off on ordering eggs then. I don’t mind so much if I have extra Roos, I was just hoping I had at least 1 with a few females. My quail cages are almost finished but they still have a few weeks before they go outside anyway. Once they start laying I figured I will give them a few weeks to hopefully get some fertile eggs and start right back with incubating.

 

[Quailobsessed]

I agree with @Nabiki

 

[Alwaysfowlplay]

All right everyone, I have updated photos of 3 that might be males. Do all 3 look like males to you? I’ve read that some can still have rust and some speckles but my girls are very obviously all speckled with barely any rust so I just wanted to get some opinions.

 

[Kale the Quail]

1 and 3 are definetily males. 2 not so sure

 

[Nabiki]

Those are all males.

 

[Fenrisulfr]

Yeah ... all males. From my experience when they have a rusty chest, even if there are some speckles, it's a male (Pharaoh).

The speckles are vanishing, the older they get.

 

[Alwaysfowlplay]

Thank you guys! I was thinking all male. So now I have 3 male and 3 female. Would the 2 males be acceptable to be kept together in a 6 1/2 sq ft enclosure? Or would they be ok being all by themselves in that size enclosure? Would it work if I switched out the male occasionally? Or would it be better to cull the extra? I plan to incubate as soon as I have enough eggs (with waiting a week or so after they start laying to collect. So they’d only be alone for maybe 2 months max? I’m just worried about having only 1 male and something happening to him and then having no way to breed.

 

[Nabiki]

Even two males are likely to fight and injure or kill each other, especially in that small a space. :-(