Aussie Finch Forum

I honestly don't know, I used to breed a few a few years back, but have been out of them for too long and just don't know what is available these days.

Well I thought I had posted it on here, maybe it was somewhere else. Either way it is a real oddball. (The quail that is.) Oh and it's mother, after it's father died started to develop the white and black bib. Then died.
LML

Thanks for the information it sounds like this is likely to be a mutant of some sort. I should have known my new zebs were anything but normal in spite of the assurances. When I get back to Australia I'm not telling where I'll get my normal zebs from! the "half-siders" sound interesting (I've seen a photo of a Gouldian on this site somewhere) and possibly are true hermaphrodites of even chimeras. Going under the knife and a few DNA test would be the most definative way to solve the puzzle. Looking around in the scientific literature I fund that true hermaphrodites are described in chickens (http://www.jstor.org/pss/1592054), with an incidence of 1 on 2000 and that these birds have triploid sex chromosomes(ZWW). I other instances old hens with a diseased ovary in or birds that have had their ovary removed, the primordial right gonad enlarges into somthing that produces enough androgens to masculinse the birds appearance.