Is this a silver red breasted button?

[JaeG]

I'm in New Zealand where we aren't supposed to have the red breasted mutation, but I have this beautiful young boy and a couple of other slightly younger boys are looking very similar. They were the result of a cinnamon split to silver crossed with a silver split to cinnamon to get some ivory birds. We seem to have ended up with every colour available in New Zealand - wild, silver, cinnamon, caramel and ivory. Then there's the few that look like this. So, is that a silver red breasted? If so my next question would be, how on earth do I go about creating a line of these birds?

 

[DK newbie]

I'm not sure. It could be, but it could also just be a silver with an unusual amount of red in its feathers.
You only have males looking like red breasts? In that case, I would pair each of them up with a random female - wild colored would be just fine, that'll make it easier to tell if the offspring is red breasted - and then breed the offspring of these pairings to each other. If the males are indeed showing the red breasted mutation, all of the offspring would be carriers of the gene, so when pairing these carriers to each other you would get 25% red breasted offspring (and 50% carriers). Pairing a carrier back to one of the dads would give 50% red breasted (and 50% carriers). If you are lucky and one of the hens used for the original pairings carry the gene, you could get red breasted chicks in the first generation.

 

[JaeG]

I'm not sure. It could be, but it could also just be a silver with an unusual amount of red in its feathers.
You only have males looking like red breasts? In that case, I would pair each of them up with a random female - wild colored would be just fine, that'll make it easier to tell if the offspring is red breasted - and then breed the offspring of these pairings to each other. If the males are indeed showing the red breasted mutation, all of the offspring would be carriers of the gene, so when pairing these carriers to each other you would get 25% red breasted offspring (and 50% carriers). Pairing a carrier back to one of the dads would give 50% red breasted (and 50% carriers). If you are lucky and one of the hens used for the original pairings carry the gene, you could get red breasted chicks in the first generation.

Thank you so much! The oldest one must be 6 weeks old now. It also lacks the slightly darker spotting along its back that my other silvers have, yet it's the same shade of silver overall. So it will be interesting to see what it looks like when it is mature. Even if he is just 'extended red' he's very pretty.

 

[MageofMist]

Looks like a mix of silver, red breasted and wildtype to me.

The bib says wildtype, as Red Breasteds have the middle of the bib dark while the light line around it is white, but the amount of red plumage says Red Breasted.

Here's one of my Red Breasted males when he was younger and easier to handle.

 

[JaeG]

Thanks for the photos. I have one that's slightly younger that has a bit of white on the face, no bib and it's got this same silver and peach colouring:

Time will tell as to whether it's a boy or girl. I'll wait until they are all well feathered up before I decide what I'm keeping.

I wasn't intending to keep any of these babies as I really need some new blood, but then they go and be all pretty like this!

 

[DK newbie]

Looks like a mix of silver, red breasted and wildtype to me.

The bib says wildtype, as Red Breasteds have the middle of the bib dark while the light line around it is white, but the amount of red plumage says Red Breasted.

I've seen pictures of red breasted roos that had the same bib as the wild colored ones do (like this guy: https://floridabuttonquail.wordpress.com/gallery/pair13use/) so I'm not sure that the line bib is actually a sign of it being red breasted. I think they are called Darth Vaders when they have the line bib, but I'm not quite sure how they get it..

Thanks for the photos. I have one that's slightly younger that has a bit of white on the face, no bib and it's got this same silver and peach colouring:
View attachment 1175851
Time will tell as to whether it's a boy or girl.

I don't see any peach on that pic, but if it has peach then it's a male.

 

[JaeG]

I've seen pictures of red breasted roos that had the same bib as the wild colored ones do (like this guy: https://floridabuttonquail.wordpress.com/gallery/pair13use/) so I'm not sure that the line bib is actually a sign of it being red breasted. I think they are called Darth Vaders when they have the line bib, but I'm not quite sure how they get it..



I don't see any peach on that pic, but if it has peach then it's a male.

I hadn't though of catching it and checking! Silly me! I got my daughter to help - she's chief quail catcher! I'm useless. It hasn't got the pink on its tummy, but it's my first silver female with white on its face.

I do seem to have two shades of silver:
Normal silver


Lighter silver


Then here's an (I hope) Ivory next to the normal silver

 

[Ulaidian]

If you weren't so far away.. I mean literally through the earth beneath me, I'd be swapping eggs/chicks..

 

[DK newbie]

The light silver sure is very light.. Otherwise I would probably have said the dark one is slate (well, can't be you dont have blue face either, right?). But the light one really does look too light to be a normal. If it's not cinnamon that causes it to be so light though.. I don't really know. It doesn't have pink eyes, does it? If it has, it could be a fallow.

 

[JaeG]

The light silver sure is very light.. Otherwise I would probably have said the dark one is slate (well, can't be you dont have blue face either, right?). But the light one really does look too light to be a normal. If it's not cinnamon that causes it to be so light though.. I don't really know. It doesn't have pink eyes, does it? If it has, it could be a fallow.

No, we don't have the blue face mutation here (as much as I would love to!). I found an Australian forum where they were discussing silver/cinnamon crosses and how you can end up with both colours on the same bird, but the bird pictured was cinnamon with silver on the top of the head and through the wings. It was a bit confusing as what they refer to as cinnamon is what I've seen called caramel - and that must be the sex linked cinnamon they were talking about as I've only ever seen and hatched females in that colour. And what I call cinnamon they call fawn. Needless to say I think I ended up more confused than when I started!

The eyes look dark so it can't be fallow. I can't fathom what's going on, but I'll see what happens with future breeding. The ones with more red on their chest (I think I've got one more young boy that will end up like the other male) don't have the darker silver spots along their back like my 'normal' silvers do. It's kind of frustrating not knowing what's going on genetically but at least you've given me a good method of hopefully bringing the colour out.