Quail identification

[New2quaill]

Hi all,

So I have 3 quail that made it after hatching, just about 4 weeks old now . Wasn’t sure what kind of Japanese quail they were , but after some reading and googling , looks like two are Italian and maybe the third is as well, not sure . But , wondering about the sex of them. Says if the breast is spotted generally means female . More uniform color on chest is a male and males have more tannish color on chest? . But the third.. looks like the one I’m sure is a female, except not many spots on “her “ chest like the other , but she’s white grey like the other. Also she’s the largest by far, when she stands up ect , and generally females are bigger right ?

Hope that all makes sense , lol. Just really hoping I don’t have 2 males and a female. We were using a light red light so won’t bother them, so until I switched it off recently I notice the color difference stuck and made me worried. I can separate them if it’s 2/1 ratio.. but means either two males be stuck together and hope they don’t fight , or one male is alone and then 1 to 1 ratio with the female .. and for the most part I’ve read means she be over breed and could go bald ect ect . But some males are nicer than others.. but I won’t assume that’ll be the case. Wondering if I should work on finding some more hens in the worst case . Though we only wanted 5 or 6 to start.. lol

sorry about the essay! Any help is appreciated . Pics coming , first two is what I assume is the female , followed by the questionable ? And then the one I assume is male .. but not sure what breed. Thanks

 

[roonster]

new to quail, also. i found vent sexing to be easy. if judging by color id say 2 males but color and spots can be unreliable.

 

[Julie45]

What age can u vent test .i incubated 15 eggs and 13 hatched all doing well 2 week yeaterday but want to spilt between to cages .read you can tell buy wing if have double female single male can u tell by vent at this age sorry new to this my first hatch .so far not lost any and doing well .going try sexing tonight see if can move some around .

 

[All4Eggz]

@FloorCandy

 

[roonster]

yeah, i overlooked their young age. maybe you cant vent sex for another week or two?

 

[FloorCandy]

You won’t be able to vent sex until they are 5+ weeks or so, and that is if they are getting 14 or more hours of light per day. You can’t sex Quail by the wing feathers. If you post front photos of the birds chests, we can help to feather sex, some Feather sexable colors will start getting red on the chest as early as 2 weeks, some are more easy than others to tell. If you are lucky, some of the males start crowing pretty early and you might be able to ID a few that way.