Quail Chicks Hatching

[shelleyd2008]

Coturnix are usually more hens than roos from my birds. Buttons are almost always roos

It depends on the females I think, they're the ones who 'throw' males or females. Apparently I've got some hen-throwing coturnix hens.

 

[Robo]

I get close to 50 50 on my coturnix hatches, but the last time I got lucky with 10 roosters and 67 hens. Not too bad as far as the number of roosters goes.

 

[Rozzie]

Wow, Robo! That last hatch was spectacular. 10 ready made coveys there! No excess roos at all...

 

[Robo]

With my own eggs I get a lot of hens, but with shipped eggs I get all roosters, and I can't stand it. That is why I start to buy eggs, and then talk myself out of it. As far as extra roosters go you could start putting them in pairs or trios. This is what I am doing with some of my English Whites.

 

[daseymay]

I have had quail a few times over the years and usually one color of coturnix at a time. There were sometimes a few chicks that were slightly different from the parents, but color was pretty consistent. I just noticed a post mentioning golden whites. Is this a cross between the golden and white quail resulting in some really nice colors? Will be hopefully hatching some golden, browns and white coturnix and wonder if you get any nice colors in crossing colors?

 

[Hoppelchen]

Quote:
Hmm, the quails' sex is determined when the egg is fertilised. Did this happen more than once and how many eggs were involved? You could just be incredibly (un)lucky (and should have played the lottery that day instead lol), but if you can make that happen consistently, you may be onto something.

Rooting around I found this paper here: http://www.reproduction-online.org/cgi/reprint/103/2/223.pdf that describes that genetically male embryos could be feminised by application of a particular substance on day 4 of the incubation -- in other words, there is hemaphrodism involved.

There is no reason why a different mechanism would not trigger females turning into a hermaphroditic male.

If you're serious about breeding then maybe getting eggs in the post is a potential problem if those roos are masculinised hemaphrodites?