Jumbo Coturnix Quail Sexing Trouble...

[bonnie in indiana]

They are both females.
How old are they? If more than 8 weeks old, GET THEM OFF THE 30% feed. You are killing their kidneys!!!!!!!!!! Adults need Layer feed at about 20%. I give mine 18% and they all lay an egg a day.

Hope that you enjoy your birds.. They love a sand box and greens and a slice of bread. Mine all love their treats.

 

[bonnie in indiana]

male

 

[bonnie in indiana]

male and female

 

[tlgrimmy]

Thanks everybody for all of the helpful posts! Of course mine have to to be these weird in-the-middle quail. Maybe they're hermaphrodites...lol. They all look so dang similar. I picked up some more from another guy off of craigslist and was able to make out the differences between them visually a bit better. However, some of them are in the same boat as my original 3, having lighter orange coloration, but still having some spots. I wonder if the strains down here in southern CA have developed these characteristics where the males and females don't have near the contrast as other strains. Sounds about right for California. I tried to vent check one of the assumed males from my other batch that had the orangey color, but still had some spots. There was nothing really to squeeze in the vent area and the vent seemed pretty flat and darker grey/beige. Must be another hermaphrodite! I guess I need a little more practice with the vent checking. I tried checking three of the quail and none of them had a bulb down there; just pretty flat and darker in color (no pink). No eggs still. Turns out they aren't on 30% protein food. I mis-remembered (if that's a word...). Looks to be 22% protein turkey and game crumble feed.

 

[laseterlass]

I beg to differ. My coturnix have laid all winter in Anchorage Ak. Unheated with a light in the evening till 9 pm. When it warms to above 32 I get an egg from every lady. When it drops below they go to every other night. Mine are on the ground with about 6 inches of deep litter. And fresh straw daily and eat non soy and corn lay pellets and suet coated Boss wild bird seed. Kitchen scraps too. They love cantaloupe! They will reward your care with eggs.

 

[MrNappy]

Every day isn't good, they should skip a day, so you should be getting 4-5 per week, although younger ones will lay more anyway.

 

[tlgrimmy]

Good to know! I assumed that this must be the case, as I have heard of many others having success with them in winter. I also have two Cayuga ducks and am getting an egg a day from each right now, so I figured the cold shouldn't be stopping them necessarily. I still haven't seen a single egg from my quail unfortunately. My ducks are putting them to shame!

 

[MrNappy]

Young quails will still lay even when you don't want em to, (from experience, less than 14 hours), temperature might also be a factor.

If they have more than 14 hours of light than they should lay, twocrowsranch knows the specifics about temp and what not. (Hope i spelled name right...)

 

[tlgrimmy]

Hello everybody. The verdict is in! It looks like they are all three females. I've come out to 3 eggs every day for the last three days. I think I even notice a slightly different type of egg coloring and finish for each of the three quails, which is kind of neat. Here's a picture:

 

[tinaboothe987]

Hello everybody! I'm brand new to the coturnix quail thing, but am very excited to get started! I just picked these gals (hopefully) up a couple of weeks ago off of craigslist. I was told they're female, but haven't managed to get any eggs out of 'em in a solid three weeks now. I had them indoors and left the light on for a couple of hours after the sun went down to keep the days long and the temps up. No luck! These ones are quite tricky for me to nail down. I see spots on the chests of all of them, but not nearly as many as other females I've seen online. What are your thoughts? Are these all girls? Are they just young? Or did someone pull a fast one on me? Haven't heard any of the tell-tale calls from a coturnix roo and they all enjoy cuddling up together. No one seems to try to dominate, and of course, I haven't seen any mounting. That makes me think they must be females, but I can't explain the lack of eggs (not sure how to tell their age). Oh, and I have them on a turkey and game feed that supposedly has 30% protein. The feed store told me it was their best quality feed for laying hens of all types.

Hi we got are from Craigslist too and they told us they were jumbo quails and we got mixs up. We got both different ones. But the males have all brown chest and females has black pots on their chest. We got more males then females. All together we got 17 chicks end up with more males. So be careful what they say looks like you got males that's why they are not laying eggs. So sorry. But we are getting 10 more chick hopefully we get more females this time around. And make sure they are jumbo quails lol and the food is right kind we get same food for our quails. Please have a great day