redhen, it was you who asked about the oyster shell right? I grind it up in a grinder to make it smaller...however oystershell is so strong most of it still stays huge...so i sift out the tinies for the quail and the biggies to the chickens
I have some stuff to add to sexing
I have a hen who if people went off of the bib, would think she was a he...however nope Pippin is a hen.
The reason she has white where a males bib would be is because she's a pied.
(evident on her throat and her wings). Heres a picture of her. she's a "wild pied".
Pippin as a chick:
Pippin reciently showing her white wing feathers:
Pippins throat:
Also, I have a silver male button quail chick, it took until JUST today for me to know if it was a male or not (i hoped for a male and YES it is)! LOL! His names Kpax, and he just turned 5 weeks old yesterday and i couldnt tell until today that he was a male. His throat feathers finnally came in enough i can see a perfect white bib against his silvering. Instead of his chest being tinted pink, it's tinted yellow really weird! LOL! Heres some pics of him taken just now:
Also....cinnamon hens can have red looking breasts...however they won't have RED vent feathers. I have a cinnamon hen with a redish looking chest but it's just her cinnamon colors showing through...here's her pic (taken today just for this purpose to show ya now hehe) ofcourse it's smart to note that male cinnamons REALLY have a redbreast
:
this is her vent area feathers, no male red feathering (the whole bottom would be solid red feathers):
Not to mention, the silver male is petiet, compaired to my three hens who have very wid chests and are bigger in size than my males.
by the way too, my cinnamon hens head looks pecked, it's not, it's just she's still got some blood feathers growing in there heads take the longest to feather i've noticed. She just turned 6 weeks old today i cannot wait for eggies from my trio!!!
If you notice my silver male still has yellow fluff on his head its cute hehe!
I'd deffinatly be interested in the quail swap whenever it is....eggs ofcourse tho id be scared to ship button quail chickies..i might some day but too scared just yet HE HE! I have button quail, and coturnix quails to offer.
In march my coturnixs will be paired up by colors, so I should have specific colors available...like Golden I deffinatly can almost guarrentee once I have them paired up (as golden is a dominant color) and i have two British ranges, not sure of their sex buti think their color is also dominant so that'll show up in the eggs too.
THen my normal brown pharoahs and jumbos.
I can't guarrentee button color that's hard! LOL! I had two wilds pop out a cinnamon (the cinnamon above to be exact) soo I never know what im going to get.
BTW heres some good mutations of cinnamon buttons for anyone who's interested:
http://www.zebrafinch.com/newbuttonquail/Cinnamon.html
