Pharaoh coturnix quail birthed a Texas A&M

[GrandpaChainz]

I've been breeding pharaoh coturnix quail for a few years now. They're the lineage of a batch of jumbo coturnix eggs I incubated a while ago. (Keeping a couple breeding flocks to prevent inbreeding)

Today, I had a small batch of quail eggs hatch. Incredibly enough, one of them is a Texas A&M. Black spot on the head and all. I'm guessing maybe one of my birds' ancestors was crossed with an A&M, but this chick has no brown on it at all. Pretty incredible.

I guess my question is: what are the odds of that?

 

[DK newbie]

Well.. Both parents need to be split for white. As you can't tell by looking at them, it's basically a 50/50 chance for each parent, but many factors regarding their ancestry come into play. The more birds you have, the higher the chance there will be both a roo and a hen in the same enclosure, that are split to it. And from their chicks, there is a 25% chance that each chick will be white.
The chances are not great, but birds can be split to white without ever having had a white ancestor, and so white birds can theoretically pop up anywhere..

 

[Fishkeeper]

Texas A&M are from a specific genetic line. What you have is a quail that resembles one, but isn't technically one, it just wound up with the same colors. Definitely an interesting quirk of genetics!

 

[007Sean]

I've been breeding pharaoh coturnix quail for a few years now. They're the lineage of a batch of jumbo coturnix eggs I incubated a while ago. (Keeping a couple breeding flocks to prevent inbreeding)

Today, I had a small batch of quail eggs hatch. Incredibly enough, one of them is a Texas A&M. Black spot on the head and all. I'm guessing maybe one of my birds' ancestors was crossed with an A&M, but this chick has no brown on it at all. Pretty incredible.

I guess my question is: what are the odds of that?

Instead of an A&M, it's probably of English White descent. Either way, there has to be a male and a female that carry that recessive gene in your flock.

 

[Sara L]

I've had recessive whites show up when neither parent is white, it can definitely happen, it's just a recessive color so it's less likely if neither parent is visibly white.

As 007Sean said, Texas A&Ms are a specific strain bred by that University, using regular pharoah colored jumbos and English whites. So if you didn't buy that strain, you have an English white.