What's the oldest a male can be without foam?

[dand883]

So we've had our 6 quail now for quite a while and I still can't tell how many males we have.
The first 4 are 11 weeks old, the other two are 9 weeks. I've been getting one egg a night predictably for a few weeks now, but only ever 1.
I have tried vent sexing them all, and I have one producing foam, one that is noticeably stretched compared to the others which I assume is my egg layer, but the other 4 are still mysteries. They all have no foam, no eggs, nothing saying for sure male or female to my very untrained eye.

What is the oldest you've seen a male not producing foam and very easy to vent sex? At this point with no foam am I firmly safe to assume the rest are female and just not laying yet?

 

[Nabiki]

The 11 week olds should certainly be producing foam if they're males. They will have a noticeable bulge below their vents too.

 

[FloorCandy]

My latest foam producer was 11 or 12 weeks, but my latest egg layer was maybe 14.

 

[Kiki]

The second unknown. Standard colour as far as i can tell, but again, no foam, no bulge, but no eggs/stretched vent either.

Male. No doubt.

 

[dand883]

How many birds do you have in this cage?

There's 6 in there

 

[Kiki]

This is the first question mark, the golden one. To me his chest says male, but no foam.

Male.


You have too many males in this cage.

 

[dand883]

I see three, maybe 4, males so far.

I didn't bother taking pictures of the other 3, they're all the dark tibetan/rosetta colour and can't tell anything from the colour.

 

[dand883]

I see three, maybe 4, males so far.

Would you say the third one that is molting is male as well, or is it female?

 

[dand883]

That one is tricky but it looks like the chest is solid, correct?

Here's a few more pictures from a few weeks ago of this one before it started molting. Had speckles on the chest, which is why i assumed female.

 

[dand883]

Looks pretty girly here.

That's what i thought too. Sounds like something's going to have to be done about the others. The guy i got them from has offered to let me trade any extra males for females, so i'll have to make a decision which of the males i like best.