Italian quail? Who has them and how do they compare?

[DoLittleMD]

DC thank you for such an informative and insightful answer! I appreciate it, as a beginner I don't want my birds to suffer through my ignorance. My browns are all together at the moment, not a lot of feathers about, no bald spots, heard a brown roo crow yesterday so I am in the process of banding and making "harems" as the browns are now 6 weeks old. And now that you pointed it out I do notice super anxious ones within the twelve that sort of rile everyone up I do have a death row cage all setup lol and the fawn and white are separated from the browns but are with two possible Tibetan pied? Got them all together but had to separate because the dark roo had a love/rape/hate lol relationship with the white and fawn hens he is gentle with the hen who resembles him. Smh

I thought my son and I handled them plenty but maybe not, the 4. mixed were brooded in a more commercial manner inside a shed so I assumed incorrectly they would be wilder than the browns.


Quail Jailer thank you for calling in the big guns!

 

[Quail Jailer]

DC credit where credit is due, thanks

Doolittle I was just a bystander.


I had to laugh because I had am A&M roo that I wanted to keep and breed but hes too aggressive...I pulled him out to solitary last night and its like a whole different pen of birds in there
today.

Hes on the dockett this weekend...His head, I'm gonna dock it...lol

 

[DoLittleMD]

Lol don't want to breed maniac birds thank you he was actually dragging the white by her head feathers when I was like j.lo Enough!

 

[dc3085]

DC thank you for such an informative and insightful answer! I appreciate it, as a beginner I don't want my birds to suffer through my ignorance. My browns are all together at the moment, not a lot of feathers about, no bald spots, heard a brown roo crow yesterday so I am in the process of banding and making "harems" as the browns are now 6 weeks old. And now that you pointed it out I do notice super anxious ones within the twelve that sort of rile everyone up

I do have a death row cage all setup lol and the fawn and white are separated from the browns but are with two possible Tibetan pied? Got them all together but had to separate because the dark roo had a love/rape/hate lol relationship with the white and fawn hens he is gentle with the hen who resembles him. Smh

I thought my son and I handled them plenty but maybe not, the 4. mixed were brooded in a more commercial manner inside a shed so I assumed incorrectly they would be wilder than the browns.


Quail Jailer thank you for calling in the big guns!

Do your brown birds look like the brown birds in this picture?



Or this picture?



The top birds are autosexing and I can tell you have to tell them apart if thats the case.

I always send aggressive or overly nervous coturnix of both sexes to freezer camp. These things mind's hang by a simple thread and they actually go insane pretty easily, a trouble maker in there just makes it worse.

 

[DoLittleMD]

Sorry for the late reply been busy separating DC my browns are Pharaohs which does make things easier. Out of 12 Pharaoh chicks I was lucky (not) to get 8 freaking roosters! They are in a holding cell The Pharaohs are 6 weeks old as of the 15th of this month. The 4 I got last week I will post pictures of because I am not sure of their variety, those I don't believe can be visually sexed and vent sexing is just a little too intimate for me lol

I am going go take some pics brb

 

[DoLittleMD]

I am a terrible photographer, forgive me. The dark one who is not with the others is a roo as he crows like crazy far more than anyone else. The other 3 I am guessing are hens, they carry themselves like hens and I have never heard them crow?? I put the two dark together is their own cage and thus far no screaming fingers crossed. I have the fawn and white one in with the Pharaoh hens no Roos in that pen. I am going to fatten up the other Roos for a week or so and hope they taste better than they act lol

What do you think? Please feel free to tell me I am a hot mess!

 

[dc3085]

That Italian (the fawn colored bird) is a most likely a rooster. They auto sex just like pharaohs, so there would be some sort of darker speckling on his breast if he was a hen. The other two you'll just have to wait it out, some roos just don't crow much. I had one that I might have heard a handful of times his whole life.





The bird in the back looking at the camera is a rooster the others are hens. It's hard to see but the hen closest to the camera has speckles all across her breast, as would a pharaoh.

 

[DoLittleMD]

DC That is so awesome to know I love the temperament of the Italian and was thinking I had no Roos worth breeding. Thank you once again, and your birds are lovely. Do you keep them on both sand and wire?

Looking at my pics I might have missed a pharaoh roo smh in the "nice birdie" cage lol

 

[dc3085]

I've been working on the coloring of italians for a while now and I keep all of my breeders that important to me on the sand. They are happier on the sand it seems.

All of my meat birds I raise on wire, because I keep more per cage and they ruin the sand too quickly as well as taking too much of my time to clean. My breeder cages are all 10-20 sq ft and I keep only 7-8 birds in each so it makes it a lot easier to keep the sand clean.

 

[DoLittleMD]

I've been working on the coloring of italians for a while now and I keep all of my breeders that important to me on the sand. They are happier on the sand it seems.  

All of my meat birds I raise on wire, because I keep more per cage and they ruin the sand too quickly as well as taking too much of my time to clean. My breeder cages are all 10-20 sq ft and I keep only 7-8 birds in each so it makes it a lot easier to keep the sand clean.  

DC, I LOVE SAND, it smells less, easier to clean and I'm not finding shavings stuck in weird places.

I ended up culling two males and now seem to have peace in the pens and actually got my first two eggs yesterday! They are yolk less but I read here that it is normal for the first eggs. Egg white omelette anyone? On another note, I swear the Tibetan smells worse then everyone else smh