So I guess I have a rooster

[lomine]

I had a "transgender" quail. Had all the typical physical markings of a female coturnix, but didn't lay eggs. So I did the pinch test and it had unmistakable white foam coming out. Yet it never made crowing sounds. Then the day came I decided to cull the boys... well, when I opened it up, it had an egg ready to lay and two more forming inside. The weirdest quail I ever had.

Recently mated females will also extrude a small amount of foam. It doesn’t mean they have any male parts or that there’s anything wrong with them.

 

[Hungarianquail]

Recently mated females will also extrude a small amount of foam. It doesn’t mean they have any male parts or that there’s anything wrong with them.

Ok... I didn't know that. But for 3 months I only had 6 eggs every day and 7 females. I even separated them to narrow down which one doesn't lay... I was sure this was it. Now I have 6 females left and wondering which one doesn't lay and why...

 

[sarabeth485]

Thanks for all the input everyone. I think at this point we’ll just keep all five and see how everyone does.

They seem to get along fine and look pretty content. The coop is around 12ish square feet. He seems to crow just at random but only started the last day or two. Not sure what all the reasons are that quail crow. (Other than being separated from the group )

Maybe at some point we’ll try to hatch a few eggs for fun. I think the kids would have a great time with that.

 

[Erkenstein]

Thanks for all the input everyone. I think at this point we’ll just keep all five and see how everyone does.

They seem to get along fine and look pretty content. The coop is around 12ish square feet. He seems to crow just at random but only started the last day or two. Not sure what all the reasons are that quail crow. (Other than being separated from the group )

Maybe at some point we’ll try to hatch a few eggs for fun. I think the kids would have a great time with that.

He crows because he's a big boy with rust-colored pantaloons.

You should start to see mating activity, and he may pull out some neck and head feathers when that starts, so don't be alarmed as it is completely normal. Before you start incubating eggs, you'll want to give the birds a couple of weeks of mating for fertility.

 

[lomine]

Ok... I didn't know that. But for 3 months I only had 6 eggs every day and 7 females. I even separated them to narrow down which one doesn't lay... I was sure this was it. Now I have 6 females left and wondering which one doesn't lay and why...

I had a chicken hen who never laid an egg. It happens.

 

[DK newbie]

I'll call in the expert, @DK newbie

I'm pretty good with buttons but with regards to cots I'm still a newbie To me they look like 4 females and a male though.

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

Ok, so reading this makes me want to ask a question about roosters and how young they start practicing their crowing...as a few know, I have recently hatched my first batch of Coturnix eggs. The babies are 2.5 weeks old now. Sometime during the end of the first week I noticed a couple of them looking like they were trying to get a jump on learning to crow. They would stand upright and stretch their heads waaaaay up and make a sound different than the usual quiet little chirps everyone else makes. So, they kept randomly doing this and I decided to separate them from the rest whenever one would do that. I did one...then another...then another, till I had all of them over in the second brooder and decided it wasn't a rooster thing. What's up with that? They are fine otherwise, but on occasion one or two will start doing that for no apparent reason, and then quit just as randomly.

 

[Hungarianquail]

Ok, so reading this makes me want to ask a question about roosters and how young they start practicing their crowing...as a few know, I have recently hatched my first batch of Coturnix eggs. The babies are 2.5 weeks old now. Sometime during the end of the first week I noticed a couple of them looking like they were trying to get a jump on learning to crow. They would stand upright and stretch their heads waaaaay up and make a sound different than the usual quiet little chirps everyone else makes. So, they kept randomly doing this and I decided to separate them from the rest whenever one would do that. I did one...then another...then another, till I had all of them over in the second brooder and decided it wasn't a rooster thing. What's up with that? They are fine otherwise, but on occasion one or two will start doing that for no apparent reason, and then quit just as randomly.

Right around 6 weeks. Anything before that is just testing out their voice and wings. Google the sound of quail call:

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

Thanks, they're so funny

 

[MROO]

I just learned something new. I knew that male quail call, but I didn't know it was called a "crow," like a rooster's crow. Quail calls are so beautiful!