My plants are so short and bushy

Hey guys I am growing 6 sativa plants of unknown Cali medical strain.(friend brought seeds back with him from Cali) I am growing them under 250watts of CFLs or 1,000watt equivalent. They have been vegging from sprouts for 5 to 6 weeks, they are now ranging in height from 8 to 12 inches tall. They are just as wide as they are tall and so bushy that you can barely see the stem. The stems are also 1/2" in diameter and very strong. Can anyone tell me why they are growing so bushy rather than tall like they should be? Is this a good thing or should they be taller?
The second pic is a bag seed at about 3 weeks. Looks to me that there is a female calyx visible. There are 5 or 6 of them what do you guys think? Female?

MAYBE your friend picked up a hybrid instead of a sativa dominant strain? Just a possibility
Props on the healthy ladies, they are looking very green and luscious!
Are you going to be topping them? Since they're growing bushy it might be a good idea to increase yield and create the possibility for more bud sites.

Dude no problems at all. Many would kill to have a nice short bushy plant. It is easy to stretch a plant, however very hard to keep them bushy and relatively short.
Girls look good. Just make sure to capitalize on the genetics with some good lst and training choices.

the second one looks good m8 (and female.. i'm not sure but female and male pre flowers look the same!) , it looks like the wappa i have on the go....but anyhoo the reason they are so small is the light yer using !!!! thats why they look stunted... give them more cfl's

Doesn't look like a Sativa to me. Definately Indica. Some kind of kush maybe.

Thanks for the replies guys! I was told it was sativa and wish I had a pic of the same strain growing at my friends house. He used a 1000w hps but is now using T5s to cut down on temps in the summer. His plants are the same age but 2 feet tall and scarce on leaves. The second pic in my first post with the redish stems is a seed from a bag of mids! It was a test plant and just decided to keep it. So far though I think 4 of my 5 good plants are going to either be male or hermie! But idk might be judging them too soon, they only have pre flowers that can only be seen using a magnifying glass.

BTW I'm using schultz potting soil(has ph adjusted soil strait from bag) and tap water left out for 2 days before use. I also adjust the PH of the water to 6.3. Store bought liquid nutes that I use once a week and thats it. Only about $200 invested so far but I do need more lights soon.