A little bit concerned...(Female or male?)

[Dean&Laura]

We bought a new female silver CPQ from a quail breeder on Sunday and after giving her the once over we were content she was female. But she has started to display male behaviours.

She has yet to make any male calls (she is still quite young in that respect) but she is rather small (about our male's size) and displayed non violent-aggresive territorial behavior.

Is it that she may be displaying these traits in an attempt to assert herself in the cage, or could we have another male on our hands? (i have heard of CPQ's adopting opposite gender behavior)

She has not yet developed the bib of a male, but we're considering it may come around later. (our male did display for her briefly the other day and has not attacked her as he would another male)

Is there another way of visually sexing her?

Here is a close up (Olwen) (if she is a boy, she's changing her name to Gandalf. XD)
http://i43.tinypic.com/2ylppbs.jpg

And a group shot to compare sizes...

http://i43.tinypic.com/10xwsic.jpg

If she is a 'he' we'll simply put him in a different cage and get him a wife from another breeder.

Thanks for putting up with my endless questions, i really appreciate the advice i get here.

 

[Marigold]

Did your breeder tell you how to sex CPQs? I'm sure with his experience he would have had some reason to think your new one was a girl. With coturnix, you can sex the speckled colours quite reliably by about 3-4 weeks as then the females start getting speckled breasts and the males get plain coloured ones. But the whites and the tuxes (ie tuxedos - birds with a waistcoat of white across the chest) can't be reliably sexed until they either crow or lay an egg. Out of my first batch of youngsters, now 7 weeks, I know i have 3 speckled girls, but also there are two whites and two tuxes, and I'm waiting for developments there! Once they get to 8+ weeks it's possible with coturnix to squeeze the male's bum and a foam ball appears, but they have to reach puberty before this is evident. Last Autumn I bought a 'female' tux who started to crow in February! (He turned out to be rather a nasty bird and is no longer with us. Neither, unfortunately, is the nice little hen whose beak he tore off when trying to rape her.)

So long as all yours are OK together, it would be best to just give them time. Olwen/Gandalf is still not mature and if no fighting, no problem! However, if she does turn out to be male, you will know about it when it happens. In that case it would be best to take her/him back and swap her for another one, a certain female, else you're just going to be duplicating the original problem, ie setting up another single male/female pair.

 

[Dean&Laura]

Well, i've just had to seperate olwen from molly as she was pulling out her feathers and eating them! (poor molly has only just got them back!)

I think its because she was in a large group of females before and probably did it quite alot there as some of the quails had patches missing.

She's pretty much a solid silver and although the breeder did not tell us how to sex them we did do 'the vent test' and didn't see anything to suggest she was a boy (no foam or tiny winky).

We're really really fond of our olwen/gandalf so we could never part with her/him because she/he has such a wonderful character and gentle nature (usually) but we'll wait and see.

When we put her on her own she started to call, and Houdini replied and has not started any form of attack on her but he is doing that terratorial behavior alot recently (the charging around, wings spread and head down--though that doesn't bother Olwen)

Its tricky. It's almost as if she has both behaviours...

 

[Marigold]

Have you tried cuttlefish bone for Olwen? Maybe if she's eating the feathers she could do with a bit more calcium.
Once feather-pecking has become established as a habit, it's always very difficult to cure. In chickens people sometimes fit beak bits, which enable the bird to eat and drink but prevent them from pecking anybody else. Sometimes these work after a week or so. Don't think this would be any good on quails thougfh.

 

[Dean&Laura]

We have a cuttlefish in there (a nice big thick one that is quite soft on the beak). At the moment i have started to pick Olwen up and speak to her sternly before segregating her in another part of the cage so she learns that bad behavior keeps her away from the others. (i don't know how likely this is to work). We have heard of the beak bits but we can't find one that is suitable for quails though we have heard of a spray called 'anti-pek' which helps stop pecking in chickens though we want to use this as a last resort due to the chemicals. Perhaps Olwen is simply tempted by the new feathers growing on Molly's back. Molly is getting to be a little nervous wreck.

Another strange thing is Molly's behavior towards me. I am very accident prone and managed to give myself a black fingernail in a door a few months ago and it is still healing. Whenever Molly sees it, she tries to peck it off...Is she trying to 'groom' me? Or is she just curious over the abnormal colour? --i find it very cute (molly is very good at playing cute) but i was curious as to why she tried to do it.

 

[Marigold]

Another strange thing is Molly's behavior towards me. I am very accident prone and managed to give myself a black fingernail in a door a few months ago and it is still healing. Whenever Molly sees it, she tries to peck it off...Is she trying to 'groom' me? Or is she just curious over the abnormal colour? --i find it very cute (molly is very good at playing cute) but i was curious as to why she tried to do it.

I think she's just curious and interested in something that might conceivably be food. My Cream Legbar always makes a beeline for my shoelaces and has learned to undo them in a flash unless I've double-knotted them. She must think they are worms!

 

[Dean&Laura]

Awh! I love it when they do stuff like that. Molly has a keeness for sitting on Dean's shoulder and using it as a look out point.