Broody Quail and raising chicks - (baby pics! )

[Livi]

How cute!! Love them

 

[vigibigi]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/701108/limits-of-a-quails-maternal-instincts

more help pls!!

 

[vigibigi]

MORE BABIES!! - i just spotted a couple of brand new chicks outside! unfortunately theres another dead one, and an adult quail with a suspiciously bloody face, which is very upsetting. hard to know what exactly went on there...anyway, more pic soon when they come out from hiding place again

 

[GrandmaBird]

sounds like you need to remove them to a brooder if you want to save any of them.

 

[fatmanlol]

how did you get her broody?
please explain

 

[tricid]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread with this but I've been curious.

I read often quail don't go broody because it's basically been bred out of them. If true, does anyone think it could be selected for and maybe bred back in? Has anyone ever tried this?

 

[Lou-Moe]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread with this but I've been curious.

I read often quail don't go broody because it's basically been bred out of them. If true, does anyone think it could be selected for and maybe bred back in? Has anyone ever tried this?

I'd love to know that too!

 

[bigrob83]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread with this but I've been curious.

I read often quail don't go broody because it's basically been bred out of them. If true, does anyone think it could be selected for and maybe bred back in? Has anyone ever tried this?

interesting about genetics and possible to breed it back into a quail. this year I produced a 100 quail
started noticing eggs in a corner and found out of a 100 I had one broody female
only problem was she was "kinda" broody. Still amazed me that she had any broodyness at all though
she quit a day or two later but still...first for me

 

[cotekim]

OMG! this is amazing!!!

 

[JohnnyHarkerHts]

Hi all: perhaps saying the broodiness has been "bred out" is misleading some people.

If I understood what happened correctly, they stopped being broody, because breeders have selected hens to breed based on their NOT going broody.

Doing that does NOT mean the hens lose the genetic capability to produce offspring who are broody though.

What breeders have done is selected for a recessive gene that makes them not broody over the dominant gene that would normally make a quail broody.

It's only human efforts to prevent the brooding genes from exerting its dominance that ensure every generation is less and less broody.

If we suddenly just stopped within a few generations they'd go back to being broody like normal.

One other factor though I think plays a role and that is Japanese Quail are migratory, and breeding is tied to that migration.

The inability to migrate like they would in the wild can suppress the broody instinct effectively all by itself, and it can also make them poor mothers should they attempt to brood regardless as they don't get the natural queues that help them set their internal clocks.