A
Anonymous
Guest
Hi everyone, love the forum, so many sites offer conflicting information for the novice quail keeper. I was given 5 chinese painted quail as a christmas gift. The seller advised us that we had one male, which could be identified by it's neck banding, and 4 females of various colours. We've now learned that due to colour variations this isn't an accurate means of sexing. To have them sexed by the vet is an expensive task so chose to monitor behaviour. They are currently indoors and we noticed our black and white 'bullying' the male to the point he had been cut on his head. We seperated the male along with another bird that seemed to be nursing him and they have settled as a happy mating couple in another enclosure. We are now left with a black and white,fawn and white and a grey. The black and white is displaying very male behaviour, the most obvious is it mounting the grey frequently but also peeping when he has a meal worm and displaying infront of her ( we're assuming she is female as she is taking the worms and laying down for 'him'). The fawn and white also feeds the grey and displays infront of her but when she lays down he doesnt 'complete the task'. the seller says he had them sexed and is sure they are 4 females???? Do female quail mount other females as a dominance thing or is the seller yanking my chain? I'm not really sure I'm ready for more quail just yet but if it turns out I have 3 males and 2 females, I guess my little family is just going to have to get a little bigger quicker than I expected 
