Help sexing quail and separating options please!!

[gotascrewlucy]

Hello All

i'm hoping that you don't mind offering some advice to a quail newby. I've had a fair bit of duck brooding experience but fancied giving quails a go as they're such personalities.

I bought and incubated a dozen CP or Button Quail. 8 have hatched which is a tremendous result and theyre beutiful little things, however i'm coming up 4 weeks old on saturday and struggling to sex them.

i have one definite boy... brown beautiful clear white bib.

2 brown/mottled grey - one slightly larger than the other but no real identifiers under the chin.

2 honey/mottled brown - look identical both have quite orange colour underchins

2 silver - with white rings

1 fully white with a silver head.

I'm not totally daft and i've done a lot of searching the internet, reading and looking at example pictures but i have to confess i'm totally lost!!

In addition as some advice. yesterday 2 and today 3 (including my definite boy) have shown bald patches on their backs. The patten of feather loss is almost identical in each. I've read in some places that Button quail loose feathers as a defence mechanism when theyre frightened and i recently had to clean a few of their feet as they'd got some balls forming and also moved them into a bigger cage. Could this be the case or is it likely that at this age they're already asserting their dominance and i need to separate out some males.

thanks in advance.... it's really wonderful to have such a wealth of knowledge available in places like this!!

 

[TheRealTimShady]

the 4 birds that are brown/honey with mottled color sound like female blue breasted, tho i am no button expert. silver with white rings might be males, and the fully white and silver might be a female

check out www.stellar-gamebirds.com that is quaillady's site she has some great photo's of button quail colors, might be able to match them up on there.

 

[TheRealTimShady]

http://www.stellar-gamebirds.com/Button-Quail-Colors.html to be exact

 

[jbobs]

I think you can count on the mottled ones being hens and the silvers could turn out to be either. Generally males are more solid coloured and females more spotted. You will find out by the time they are 6-8 weeks old when they start calling and doing their stuff. But at least you have a decent number of hens!