Male or female

[Maryandgailthedog]

I have recently bought some quail, they are not sexed or aged but I really want to know if I can breed from them, I have had no eggs YET! I have heard that females are larger but males are noisy. My quail some are bigger but make the most noise, I need someone who is expierienced with quail who can answer my question! Thanks

 

[Plip]

I have recently bought some quail, they are not sexed or aged but I really want to know if I can breed from them, I have had no eggs YET! I have heard that females are larger but males are noisy. My quail some are bigger but make the most noise, I need some who is expierienced with quail who can answer my question! Thanks

Hens are generally larger than roos, but not enough (in my experience) that I would use that to tell them apart.

If they're Pharaoh (or natural) in color, then once they get to be three or four weeks old (once they're fully feathered), you can tell them apart by their breast. Hens are speckled and roos have kind of a rusty color. With some of the other colors (like white obviously), you can't sex them that way.

There's a way to vent sex them if they're mature and they're the wrong color to sex them by looking at them. It would be easier if you watched a video of that than trying to explain it, but if you go to YouTube and search on "vent sex quail" several videos will come up.

Finally, if you have more than four or five birds, it's highly likely that you have at least one of each. If you have five quail, for instance, the odds that they are either all hens or all roos is only about 6%. UNLESS someone already separated them according to sex (like if whoever you got them from was keeping only hens for eggs), but I would think they'd have told you if that was the case.

 

[Maryandgailthedog]

Hens are generally larger than roos, but not enough (in my experience) that I would use that to tell them apart.

If they're Pharaoh (or natural) in color, then once they get to be three or four weeks old (once they're fully feathered), you can tell them apart by their breast. Hens are speckled and roos have kind of a rusty color. With some of the other colors (like white obviously), you can't sex them that way.

There's a way to vent sex them if they're mature and they're the wrong color to sex them by looking at them. It would be easier if you watched a video of that than trying to explain it, but if you go to YouTube and search on "vent sex quail" several videos will come up.

Finally, if you have more than four or five birds, it's highly likely that you have at least one of each. If you have five quail, for instance, the odds that they are either all hens or all roos is only about 6%. UNLESS someone already separated them according to sex (like if whoever you got them from was keeping only hens for eggs), but I would think they'd have told you if that was the case.

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There are 5 white quail and I think 2 Japanese cotournix I don't know of that is what they are called. Thanks for your help!!

PS. I got them from a sale so did not get chance to talk with the breeder, but when I bough them they are all full feathered

 

[Plip]

If they're white in color (as opposed to bobwhite, which is another kind of quail), then they're English White or Texas A&M, which is really just a color of Coturnix. You can't sex those by looking at them.

I assume the other two are natural color (also called Pharaoh), which is the most common color for the Coturnix (Japanese quail is just another name for Coturnix quail). If so, those are the ones you can sex by looking at them.

If the breeder sold you straight run quail (meaning that he didn't purposely select out males or females), then there's a 98.5% chance that you have at least one hen and at least one roo. And most likely it's a much more even split (although you hope for more hens, because you only need one or two roos if the rest are hens).