Quail and chickens are not related. They have different personalities, colors, sizes, and sounds. The quail we have are Coturnix quail. This is a Golden Coturnix hen. Hens and roosters look very much alike. As you can see, Coturnix quail are small. This may look like a baby, but it's actually full grown. This is a Golden Coturnix rooster. Roosters have darker heads and beaks. You can usually tell what gender a baby is after a day or so because of the coloration of the beak. This is the head of a Brown Coturnix rooster. Unlike the chickens, they do not have combs or waddles. They don't have earlobes like chickens, but they can still hear. They are small, but they can run very fast. This is a White Coturnix quail. Sometimes they are called Texas A&M quail because they were created there. The other quail have all dark meat, but the White Coturnix was created to be all white meat. In the white ones, you can't tell the gender by looking at them. This is the back of a white coturnix quail. It's not as white as usual because it had a dirt bath. A dirt bath is when birds fluff and roll around in dirt. This helps with pests like lice and mites. On quail, the roosters don't have long tail feathers like chicken roosters. This means you can't tell the gender by their tails. **This quail was not hurt by being held like this. It only hurts them if you hold them like this too long or if you are rough with them. It helps to calm them down when you hold them like this, which let us get pictures. As soon as it was put down, it went back to quail activities.** This is the belly and bottom of the wings of a white coturnix quail. Quail have flight feathers (the long ones on the bottom of their wings) like chickens. They're not very good at flying, but they can use these feathers to get away from predators. What happens when you mix a brown coturnix with a white coturnix? You get a Tuxedo Coturnix! It's difficult to tell the difference between the hens and rooster of tuxedo coturnix. Tuxedo quail usually have white meat on their breast, like the white quail, and dark meat everywhere else, like the brown quail. This is not the end of quail talk. We'll cover them again soon!
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Just two brothers
Nanners & Mashers are brothers who just want to share their birds with the world. Archives
April 2016
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