WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!

[ButtonquailGirl14]

I'm glad the mystery is solved and that's really interesting. I have a female that I was sure was going to be a male. It is a cinnamon and as a growing chick it had speckles of blue on its chest and had a red tail. It stayed with those few patches of 'boy' colours for awhile, but laid an egg, then over time molted into a normal cinnamon hen.

In contrast to @007Sean I've had all boy cages before and they were actually a lot less trouble than my all girl group (I ended up with 3 girls getting the tops of their heads completely plucked). The boys had the odd missing feathers but nothing serious. They did all grow up together which does help (though so did the girls). I currently have 2 males and 5 females living in a big aviary and they seem to be getting on ok - one is even sitting on eggs.

But put the wrong individuals together and it's all out war. I tried introducing a female to a male once and they seemed to be ok so left them alone for only 2 minutes while I changed their water, in which time she pecked the top of his head into a bloody mess. I guess she was less than impressed with my choice of a mate for her. I just couldn't believe how quickly she'd severely injured him (thankfully he recovered just fine - they are tough little birds).

maybe she will most female than? I have to disagree with 007Sean that silver males and females look the same