Why are all my quail roosters?

[Cookiee]

Hi all, I have a bit of a pandemic going on with my Coturnix and button quail. I have been having really high hatch rates on both my Buttons and Coturnix quail the problem is nearly everyone is a rooster. I hatched 15 Coturnix quail a couple of months back and 13/15 of them were roosters. And in the last 6 weeks I hatched 8 button quail and everyone is a rooster except for a white that I am unable to sex at the moment.

My incubator has been running at 45% or round abouts and then I raise to 65% on LD with a temperature of 37.6 (forced) I have no idea if this is just bad luck or if this is something to do with the temperature and humidity? I have read posts online saying humidity can determine the gender of the chicks but I find this hard to believe. I am going to set off another batch shortly but just thought to ask in case anyone else had experienced this.

I forgot to mention I am mainly involved with the quails for eggs hence wanting hens rather than flocks of roosters. Any advice would be appreciated thanks.

 

[sourland]

I'm thinking bad luck? Maybe next round will be all hens?

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hi all, I have a bit of a pandemic going on with my Coturnix and button quail. I have been having really high hatch rates on both my Buttons and Coturnix quail the problem is nearly everyone is a rooster. I hatched 15 Coturnix quail a couple of months back and 13/15 of them were roosters. And in the last 6 weeks I hatched 8 button quail and everyone is a rooster except for a white that I am unable to sex at the moment.

My incubator has been running at 45% or round abouts and then I raise to 65% on LD with a temperature of 37.6 (forced) I have no idea if this is just bad luck or if this is something to do with the temperature and humidity? I have read posts online saying humidity can determine the gender of the chicks but I find this hard to believe. I am going to set off another batch shortly but just thought to ask in case anyone else had experienced this.

I forgot to mention I am mainly involved with the quails for eggs hence wanting hens rather than flocks of roosters. Any advice would be appreciated thanks.

The sex of the egg is already confirmed before incubation, I believe. The hen determines this. It isnt a problem with anything to do with the incubator, or the roo, or the hen. It's just bad luck, if you dont want boys.
There's no way to tell what sex the chick will be, but it is predecided I'm afraid.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hi all, I have a bit of a pandemic going on with my Coturnix and button quail. I have been having really high hatch rates on both my Buttons and Coturnix quail the problem is nearly everyone is a rooster. I hatched 15 Coturnix quail a couple of months back and 13/15 of them were roosters. And in the last 6 weeks I hatched 8 button quail and everyone is a rooster except for a white that I am unable to sex at the moment.

My incubator has been running at 45% or round abouts and then I raise to 65% on LD with a temperature of 37.6 (forced) I have no idea if this is just bad luck or if this is something to do with the temperature and humidity? I have read posts online saying humidity can determine the gender of the chicks but I find this hard to believe. I am going to set off another batch shortly but just thought to ask in case anyone else had experienced this.

I forgot to mention I am mainly involved with the quails for eggs hence wanting hens rather than flocks of roosters. Any advice would be appreciated thanks.

You may be able to (through trying different breeding hens) find a hen who produces more girls. But this would be time consuming and still give you more boys.
If you're after eggs, I feel it would be easier to simply purchase young hens, unless you're breeding for a certain trait.

 

[Cookiee]

You may be able to (through trying different breeding hens) find a hen who produces more girls. But this would be time consuming and still give you more boys.
If you're after eggs, I feel it would be easier to simply purchase young hens, unless you're breeding for a certain trait.

It's really difficult to purchase live birds where I live if not near impossible. The people I work with generally come to me to get their birds. I do it as it as a little side line now to earn a little bit of extra money to help with the bills during the inflation crisis here in the UK. I wish I knew someone else here in Scotland that kept birds as it would make life easier.

The trouble is all my customers (friends) mostly want hens, and with my bad luck since I started hatching to order I am stuck with a bunch of noisy roosters LOL.

Ok well thanks for the reply's at least I know now it's just poor luck. On a side note I got into ducks! I ordered 6 Cayuga eggs from Ebay and all my babies hatched health. I have attached some pictures of my Cayuga ducklings

 

[BelovedBirds]

It's really difficult to purchase live birds where I live if not near impossible. The people I work with generally come to me to get their birds. I do it as it as a little side line now to earn a little bit of extra money to help with the bills during the inflation crisis here in the UK. I wish I knew someone else here in Scotland that kept birds as it would make life easier.

The trouble is all my customers (friends) mostly want hens, and with my bad luck since I started hatching to order I am stuck with a bunch of noisy roosters LOL.

Ok well thanks for the reply's at least I know now it's just poor luck. On a side note I got into ducks! I ordered 6 Cayuga eggs from Ebay and all my babies hatched health. I have attached some pictures of my Cayuga ducklings

Those babies are just gorgeous, my goodness!
Its unfortunate that you have no local sellars! Hopefully you can figure out which hen produces more girls, I've heard of others having success in this. That would make breeding more successful.
I'm also in the UK, hope you're managing okay despite the inflation situation.

 

[Cookiee]

Those babies are just gorgeous, my goodness!
Its unfortunate that you have no local sellars! Hopefully you can figure out which hen produces more girls, I've heard of others having success in this. That would make breeding more successful.
I'm also in the UK, hope you're managing okay despite the inflation situation.

Thanks Yeah my birds keep me sane during the inflation crisis and the ducks have great personalitys, they follow me everywhere.