Okay Niki, help me out here (egg-laying question)

[shelleyd2008]

I have 10 young A&M quail. I can't remember for sure how old they are, these are the ones that hatched from Teach97 eggs. I believe they are about 5 or 6 weeks old? But I'm not sure.

Anyway, I have them seperated in two pens, 5 in each pen. I have 2 crowers in one pen, and 1 for sure in the other. The pen with (I think) 2 crowers is laying 3 eggs a day, so if there are 2 males, then those guys are figured out.

The other pen, with only 1 crowing for sure, has not given me any eggs yet? These are all the same age, so I don't know what the deal is. I'm fairly certain there is only 1 male crowing in that cage, most of the birds have definitive markings, so none of them look exactly alike.

Can I check their pelvic bones at this age to tell if they are male or female? I tried the vent sexing thing, on 1 that I know is male, and got nothing. Obviously I'm not doing it right

But the females should have a 'wider' pelvic bone, right? Would this be evident at 5-6 weeks old?

 

[Boyd]

 

[monarc23]

If they are crowing they are old enough to check for the foam. Did you see my foam video yet?




basically picture the worst abscess you can think of on an animal and look for that right above the roos vent....(well thebirds vent) and if you see it press on it (dont even have to squeeze it) and foam will come out that's a deffinate roo.

ANd yes hens will have wider pelvic area however I notice that most hens do not get the wider pelvis until they start laying eggs so since theres no eggs yet i'd say that's not a good tell tell all way to check. Id foam test (remember it's NOT the vent itself it's above the vent)

 

[shelleyd2008]

Yeah I did see it, and I tried it, but evidently I didn't do it right. I tried with one of my adult 'for sure' roos, so idk what I did wrong. I know it's possible, but what are the odds that they are all 5 males??

6 of my 7 goldens are males I think, I'll have to take pics of each of them and have you tell me for sure. But that's what it looks like there. I'm not sure if I'll even keep a golden roo, might just stick the one girl in with the jumbo browns.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
I hope it's not all 5 boys! LOL! My A & Ms all showed themselves already to me, what I did notice though about my oldest almost adult coturnix is that almost all the A&Ms were roos which sucked....

dunno if that's normal but i was blessed with like 8 roos and only 2 hens LOL!

 

[shelleyd2008]

Well, if you remember, my first hatch had 2, and both of them were males. I really hope they aren't all males, but I have only heard 1 crow so far. But I have read that the less dominant ones will not crow sometimes? Idk about that, my first 2 both crowed, and there was definitely one that was always getting punked, by the other A&M and by the button!

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
haha the button!

Nope I threw in my browns wiht my goldens the other day, all the roos in there happily crow except the youngest (he may but i havent heard him yet)

Theres a ton of girls in there though so maybe they dont feel the need to hide from eachother lol