help with possible first quail pen please (: (coturnix)

[ohiogoatgirl]

yesterday i saw the first attempts at breeding. the "humper" was one of the two tux so i can tell him by sight. checked his bits after like an hour and there was a bit of foam left around it. didnt catch which one was the "humpee" though to mark it. but about an hour after checkin the roo i found MY FIRST EGG!
super super duper excited about it. i was expecting a real little one for the first egg but its good size and pretty round. if my cell will cooperate i will post the pic of it.

so i have 5 total and now i know at least 1 is a roo and at least 1 is a hen! i will be checking them all again for foam now i suppose. need a different way to mark them if i end up finding another one is a roo /: fingers crossed no more roos! good side though he is the biggest of them so if i hatch out later he should be pretty good to pass down.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Not the best pics but...

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

This one is the known roo now:

 

[DaisyQ12]

Congrats on the egg And that's a handsome too you got!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

thanks. i got a second egg. this one more light and regular splotchy color. the first egg was real dark and spitspot dots rather than splotchy.
things got a bit nuts and then today it was pouring buckets of rain so i havent checked the rest over for foam again yet. if i end up with another roo hopefully i can make it to a swap and get a hen or a couple chicks or somethin.

 

[dc3085]

When they first begin to lay they will lay off color, and odd sized eggs. After a couple weeks they get up to the correct size and become more uniform.

When vent sexing a cage that has hens and roosters, you have to be careful because a recently bred hen will also have foam in her vent.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

thanks i was readin that but since i dont seem to ever get any foam when i sex any of them

this morning (6:30AM) i got an egg, and i checked for the evening (9:30PM) - not expecting to find any- and theres another egg! it definitely wasnt there at 3PM. both are nice size and normal egg shape and color, not like the first ever egg which was slightly smaller and quite rounded and had an "overbaked" color lol.
so how can i tell if i have one hen laying and today she laid two eggs, or i have a second hen laying that didnt lay an off first egg?

and i hope i dont jinx myself sayin this but other than the very first egg all the ones after have been layed in the hay box. i have a pan for dustbath and a plastic pan i put a bunch of short hay in and make a bit of a nest hole in the middle and pop it in. alot of times when i check they are a couple chillin in the dustbox and a few chillin in the haybox. and when i have been out in the night they all pile into one to sleep! silly cuddle birds.

 

[dc3085]

It is nearly impossible for one bird to lay two completely formed eggs in one day. It's safe to assume that you have two laying.

Sometimes if you separate the birds one at a time, they will either crow or chirp for you out of anger. Males crow and can cricket very softly (they usually only do it when you are holding them) that sharp loud chirp that sounds like a loud cricket is something only hens can produce.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

i hear a soft cricket noise from them, but thats just from them in general all in the hutch. so i couldnt say for sure who is doing it or not doing it. how long would a roo need to be seperated before he is gonna crow at me? well in general i suppose, i just have never heard anything other than the quiet cricket chirpy noises.

i tried checking for foam again... i got some poop...

can you feel like a bulge at the vent when a hen hasnt layed her egg yet? i felt a firm/hard bulge on one of them (my second tux actually, first tux is the roo) so hopefully i will go out in a bit and find an egg and that one wont have the bulge so i will know that one is a hen

 

[dc3085]

Yes just to the fore of the vent you will feel a hard object if the hen has an egg in process.

When you split them up it takes a few minutes before they'll vocalize.