Japanese Quail Color Calculator- Best Link

[Stellar]

All colors of coturnix originate from the wild pharaoh. So by saying the rosetta is a split, they all are splits. The roux spontaneously evolved from the wild pharaoh, but other than that, all colors were created from one. The codes from the link is nice, I like it, but people like simple so I tend to talk that way on the forum. It's nice having someone else interested in color though. If you need to chat, let me know. Lots of people are working together on standards. This is good! Coturnix deserves one too.

 

[MobyQuail]

its tough but not really rocket science, shingling a hip roof is just as hard. it took me awhile to learn all the friggin slang names people come up with for the secondary and tertiary "split" birds.

but think about it, someone should be able to tell you exactly what their birds color blueprint is? there are only so many combos of colors here in the US given what we have to work with.

I can tell you my 2nd generation Jumbo Brown (white split) birds are

Wh+wh Br+Br+ yw+yw+ e+e+ pi+pi+
Wildtype
split: White(wh)


so, in order to get what color you want, you only need to know what the Quail Color Recipe is...then for secondary colors cross birds that are homozygous for those traits. the secondary colors like "Rosetta", a bird that is wildtype on 3 of the 5 loci, you need to cross a Tibetan (homozygous EE) with a Manchurian (homozygous YwYw) all the birds will get one copy of the tibetan E gene from hen and 1 copy of fawn gene from cockbird. making them Ywyw+ at the yellow (italian) and Ee+ at the red (tibetan SF)

giving each bird heterozygous alleles on the red and yellow loci and wildtype on all others = rosetta, and more slang specifically a "italian rosetta"

rosettas or "scarlets" to italians again, birds heterozygous on several loci will pop out many different patterns. with the the manchurian being the truer cross and not spitting out any birds without the fawn gene (Yw), rosetta to italian leaves you a 25% chance the birds will have no fawn gene and be wildtype at the yellow loci (yw+yw+)


thats enough for today...

 

[Stellar]

If the breeder knows the blue print of each of the bird he/she knows, when they are in a colony, do you think the breeder should present the possibility (even if it is just a .0001% chance) that when the customer hatches out a bunch of birds and gets one off color. Should that be mentioned before the sale happens? If you were selling the split browns for example? IF that makes any sense. DO you feel the breeder should have a record of EACH bird with the blueprint of their colors. I have been doing that with my lines since I have so many colors on my hands in separated pens. What are your opinions being this a genetic thread afterall?

 

[MobyQuail]

a scarlet is pure roux, heterozygous fawn (italian) and heterozygous tibetan.

to get my best odds at getting the most scarlet birds, what do I cross to get a bird with 2 roux genes, 1 italian gene and 1 tibetan gene?

well. I think you need a big pure roux with a big pure red manchurian (bfrancis) here is why...the roux will pass a roux gene to each offspring.

the red "manchurian" (pure roux, pure fawn and pure tibetan) will pass a roux gene, a fawn gene and a tibetan gene to all offspring.

the offspring will all have 2 roux genes, 1 fawn gene and 1 tibetan gene- voila- 100% scarlets, in through the sidedoor.

so, putting heterozygous colors together in colony pens is kinda asking for trouble, e.g., 8-12-16 possible color combos, with a lot of head scratching, it can all be done simpler and easier starting with pure colors, bird that are homozygous on 1 or 2 or even 3 color loci, and making one or two crosses to get a population of the desired fancy color birds.- like the scarlets.

breeders should be reverse crossing to wildtypes to prove birds carry 2 genes. a manchurian (2 fawn genes) crossed with a wildtype brown, should yield birds with one fawn gene (italians). etc.

 

[bfrancis]

This is some really good stuff...I rise mine in the colony setting, but color separated....Will definitely have to get more pens built for all the colors that are coming up.

I think there are two basic quail keepers, well three.

1) Growing the big ones for consumption...they don't care about the specific road map for production...they just want to know as soon as it hatches, it will eat, drink, get huge, and taste good.

2) The hobbyist, who again doesn't care about the road map, but just wants to know that they have healthy, pretty colors...they will typically have several different colors housed together with the proper male/female ratio and are excited to get eggs and like the 17 day wait to see what comes out...this would probably be the biggest demographic too. The quail hobbyist would probably have less than 25 adult breeders, maybe two elevated cages.

3) Then you have the breeders that will have multiple cages or pens. Their cages would be pure color cages, but hatch all the eggs together, so when they still get several different colors, copies of what they put in the incubator...but no idea that some of the eggs came from a totally different cage than they expected. Which is OK. This will be group who really will dig this calculator, and are responsible for getting all the colors out to the masses. But to know the recipe on how to get that color is awesome! So now when they send out a specific color egg, they will have known what parental colors to house together to get that color.

Now, as breeders, do we need to tell the potential customers the genetic makeup of each bird and the color possibilities because of recessive genes? No, I don't think so. "Why?" you ask, first remember the demographic outlined at item number 2; they really don't care. They want "X" color bird for their viewing pleasure and think that colors, "Y and Z" would also look good in the same cage setting in their garden....I think that if the customer directly asks a question, certainly answer it honestly. But to give an automatic disclaimer, "This bird is displaying a double recessive and if you breed those two together they won't breed true...your possibility colors would be X, W, Z and and " I believe would be a waste of your time and the customer's time too.

As the hobbyist begins to develop and the coturnix addiction take hold (I started out with 6 several years ago and up to 100ish breeders...) They will quest for more knowledge and color production...that's where this thread will not only help but encourage others! It is also a chance for breeders to proof their work and talk about results...a "Lab" class held across the world!

Again great stuff...glad we're all coming together here!

 

[MobyQuail]

Breeders should only be sending out pure colors, unless otherwise specified.

If you have the blueprint for a bird you know what offspring it will produce based on the blueprint of the bird that you cross it against. There really should be no surprises.

If one was to keep colonies of like "pure" colored birds separated. They could ship perfect eggs.

We know this, If you cross a pure pure wildtype x wildtype you get wildtype

tibetan (EE) x Pure tibetan (EE) you will always end up with pure tibetan (EE)

same thing with Roux (brb brb)

Manchurian (YwYw)

and white (wh wh)

you can take pure colors and "layer" them over and under other pure colors. you can have a "Roux manchurian" and they will always breed true, in fact there are manchurian tibetans, they breed true but the pure red layered over the pure yellow gives you a bird that is hard to tell from an italian tibetan or a regular ol plain tibetan.

now throw in the splits, and you see the layers... heterozygous fawn + heterozygous tibetan = rosetta 1 fawn 1 tibetan

but test cross the rosetta to a rosetta, you get birds that have either (0,1,2 fawn alleles) X (0,1,2 tibetan alleles) = roll the dice.

a breeder can place 2 pure colors or birds of multiple pure colors together to make the eggs to sell as the "splits" they are and use the proper name, but should not use splits as breeders.

even sex-linked colors have a recipe to follow more later on that,

first lets take another example of a pretty bird.

scarlett manchurian= (wildtype)(roux)(manchurian)(tibetan SF)(wildtype)

how do we get a bird that has 2 roux genes 2 fawn genes and 1 tibetan gene?

cross a pure breeding roux manchurian with a red manchurian, all 100% of offspring will have 2 roux, 2 manchurian, 1 tibetan alleles, again, ta-da! scarlett manchurian in aisle 4.

 

[bfrancis]

Breeders should only be sending out pure colors, unless otherwise specified.


cross a pure breeding roux manchurian with a red manchurian, all 100% of offspring will have 2 roux, 2 manchurian, 1 tibetan alleles, again, ta-da! scarlett manchurian in aisle 4.

Had to laugh on this one...My scarlet are in "pen # 4"!

 

[MobyQuail]

but test cross the rosetta to a rosetta, you get birds that have either (0,1,2 fawn alleles) X (0,1,2 tibetan alleles) = roll the dice.

more on this...

"italian rosetta" is (wildtype)(wildtype)(italian)(tibetan SF)(wildtype) there are 2 heterozygous genes out there.

so, all other things being equal, crossing those birds with 2 heterozygous genes yields this (0,1,2 fawn alleles) X (0,1,2 tibetan alleles)

what is that?

stated simply,

you will have birds with

0fawn 0 tibetan = wildtype - breeds true
0 fawn 1 tibetan = tibetan SF
0 fawn 2 tibetan = tibetan - breeds true

1fawn 0 tibetan = italian
1 fawn 1 tibetan = italian rosetta
1 fawn 2 tibetan = italian tibetan = tibetan gene shows over yellow

2fawn 0 tibetan = manchurian - breeds true
2 fawn 1 tibetan = manchurian rosetta
2 fawn 2 tibetan =manchurian tibetan = tibetan gene shows over manchurian- breeds true

 

[MobyQuail]

well, I hope others are catching on.

now here goes.

I am not claiming credit for the recipes, just trying to put them all down for everyone to understand. All the possible color combos are already out there.
We haven't even talked about the red head gene or sex-linked, and does it matter if the male or female pass the recessive or dominant gene.

I know its in the collective consciousness. I have reached out and grabbed, collected, tested the evidence everyone sees as they stumble across the web late at night or stare at their birds day after day, setting after setting, brood after brood.

look, here is my goal. its not to become the undisputed king of quail knowledge and lore. We all have the next 20 years to do that...

it is to get smart, conscious Coturnix breeders to make their pens as pure color as they can be and to move the hobby forward, instead of into any one pocket...

very, very few breeders do this with the colored birds. most do it with the browns, whites, tibetans, keeping them separate. even machurians should be kept separate.

my 2 cents, very few people who call themselves breeders even understand the colors and how they work.


in my opinion, "split birds"- italians, rosetta, scarlets, if they do not breed true to color, aren't they just "easter eggers"... lets think "Ameraucana" here... lets think chicken, and the organization of breeds and types that they do.


lets draw some parallels

large fowl/bantam = Jumbo/Standard

rhode island red chicken X black rock roo = ? black bird with red leakage?

tibetan quail x wildtype cock = ? brown bird with red leakage? or red bird with brown leakage? you end up with heterozygous red and brown genes...


in my opinion, and maybe only mine, if someone orders scarlet birds from a breeder, the breeder in every possible way they can, should be sending eggs that all hatch out to be "scarlet", not scarlet, roux and tibetan

and breeding scarlet to scarlet isnt gonna do that for you. 100% scarlet italian hatch can be done with pure parents from two distinctly different colors.

I would think a perfect breeders set up would consist of 2 lines of each of the pure breeding colors, wildtype, white, roux, tibetan, manchurian and their pure breeding tux counterparts, and then some pens for the 2 loci pure birds- tibetan manchurians, etc, and then the 3 loci pure birds and there are even 4 loci pure birds if you count the red (roux tibetan) manchurian tuxedo, I am guessing they would breed true...

 

[MobyQuail]

now, here is a curveball

what about all these different international flavor names...italian, english white, tibetan, manchurian, japanese...then the colors crossed in with names

its like trying to decipher the metric english conversion charts...

we have to remember, the lil brown bird this all started with is the common quail found throughout Europe and Asia one coast to the other and then to Japan even.

after initial imports and crosses, lets say we have probably focused more on the "japanese" subspecies of the lil bird.

So, maybe putting regional names to plumage color variations was one way of doing it for people, English White, Italian Yellow, British Range, Tibetan, Manchurian Fawn- were the "tibetan" colored quail a color mutation from the red grasslands of tibet, what did the grasslands of "manchuria" - a province in china? look like to find "Fawn" colored birds best adapted to environment there when people came through classifying them with "colorful" names.

we have to remember there is a blueprint for each plumage variation given a set of birds without any instantaneous mutations...