first time quail owner questions

[ldotm698]

Hi, I recently picked up 15 jumbo coturnix quail yesterday and have a question. The birds are a mix of male & female. When they start laying, can I take the eggs straight to an incubator? I have no way of telling the males/females apart.

 

[JaeG]

Too many males in the group will cause a lot of stress to everyone and stress affects a females ability to lay eggs. You need to sex them and remove excess males. For good fertility one male to every four females is a good ratio but if you want to keep them as a big group you will need less males and more space with a lot of hiding places for individuals to get away from each other.

If they are the wild/pharaoh colour or italian/gold then they are easy to visually sex. Males have a rusty chest and females have a spotty chest. Occasionally you get a male with a spotty chest but if there's any rusty red colour in the spots then it's a boy. Behaviourally males crow (find a video on YouTube so you know what to listen for) and mount other birds (whether they are male or female it doesn't matter to them). Females never crow or mount other birds.

How old are the birds? Eggs often start out small so I would wait a couple of weeks before trying to incubate any so that everyone has their technique perfected and the females are producing normal sized eggs. You may want to crack open a few before incubating any to ensure that they are being fertilised. Look for the 'bullseye' on the yolk.

 

[lomine]

second that you need to sex them so your girls don't get over-mated and the males don't hurt each other fighting.

To add to that, if you want your eggs to hatch around the same time you'll want to put them in the incubator at the same time. If you put them in on different days you'll have to deal with a staggered hatch and that makes things more complicated.

Store the eggs at room temperature with the larger/wider end up until you're ready to put them in the incubator. They can be kept up to 10 days. After that the fertility rates drop but they may still be good. It helps to turn them a few times a day.

 

[ldotm698]

Thanks for the info. They are about 5 1/2 weeks old and doing well in their new home.