Help with gender

[1000yearoldeggs]

This is the one quail out of my group of five that has been harassing and making the other ones bleed. I thought this one was a female because I saw spots, but then it started crowing and got very aggressive. The crowing means it's 100% male, right? The spots confused me.

 

[gamebirdsonly]

Yes it's a Roo

 

[1000yearoldeggs]

Thanks. That makes me sad. I think I know why he's so aggressive though. I think my youngest is a female, so he's attacking everyone else and jumping on her, even though she's a bit too young I think. I'm probably gonna try to hatch more soon, hopefully more females this time. Thanks for your input.

 

[dc3085]

Good luck wishing for more females out of a coturnix hatch

By attacking do you mean he is holding onto their heads and climbing on their backs or is he pulling feathers out intentionally? Do you have birds that are missing feathers? If the rooster gets knocked off while doing the deed he will chase her around trying to get back on the wagon.

Because I raise a lot of birds I usually send those roosters with the oddball spots to freezer camp so they aren't reproducing birds that are hard to autosex.

 

[1000yearoldeggs]

He pulls out feathers and made one of them bleed. I noticed he was trying to mount the youngest one, which I'm now 100% sure is female. I'm keeping her separate just so they won't fight, plus she's younger than them and seems happy to be on her own for a while.

 

[dc3085]

I would suggest processing the aggressive rooster, if he makes one bleed while youre not around and the bleeding doesn't stop quickly enough you won't be happy with the results. In my experience if they are aggressive they never stop being aggressive. You may be able to give him away or something if you don't process birds. Or maybe just keep him solo but they get noisy when you do that.

 

[1000yearoldeggs]

Thanks, I may have someone who will take him and maybe the other males. I'm not sure if I can process him, I guess we'll see what happens.

 

[QuailRaiser]

definitly a Roo