I am raising Jumbo Brown Coturnix with bloodlines from MyShire Farms(MF) and JMF-Southwest Gamebirds (JMF-SWGB) from an initial round of shipped eggs, and now from my own hatched eggs.
Both lines are strong, healthy, beautiful quail with overall great disposition and personality. (I have had excess males that were grouped together become aggressive after about 6-8 weeks old. I just saw a new video by Zach on some things to try to remedy that.)
Both bloodlines are true “Jumbos” in that they weigh at least 10 ounces at 10 weeks, and their eggs are at least 12-16 grams. Most of mine are actually weighing more than 10 ounces at 8 weeks. I am feeding them only organic non-gmo feed and bottled reverse osmosis water. About 20-30% of my eggs from both bloodlines are larger than 16 grams with 20-30% of JMF-SWGB weighing 17-18 grams, and 20-30% of MF weighing 17-22 grams.
Both bloodlines started laying their own eggs at 6 weeks of age. They are garage-kept in an awesome Wynola Ranch three-tier cage with 1/2”x 1” PVC-coated wire floor, with temps 55-65 F during the fall/winter, 16 hours of daylight with amazing LED lighting that mimics full spectrum morning sun all day! They have an abundance of organic non-gmo feed in very generous feed troughs, and new Wynola Ranch open water troughs that are on the exterior of the cage. My quail never caught on to pecking the little yellow bobber on those little bowls. Papa builder at MF reported that their quail are less anxious when they have open troughs of water instead of pecking at nipples or bobbers. I think Zach and Papa Builder collaborated with Dave at Wynola to design the new water troughs. I love them and so do my quail!
The MF bloodline are slightly larger birds than the JMF-SWGB. The JMF-SWGB bloodline have stronger legs and are able to successfully take flight and fly out of my Dale’s Quails brooder and land on the floor at 10 days old (while I had the cage open for cleaning and refilling food/water). The MF quail don’t attempt to fly out nearly as often: typically fly straight up and back down into the brooder, and only twice have they flown out of the brooder at about 14+ days old with a less controlled landing.
The MF quail plumage looks more like a Pharaoh (more black on the heads, and more black and cream speckle on the chest than the muted/diluted true Jumbo Brown plumage. (SWGB has great side by side plumage pics to learn more about the subtle plumage coloration differences). I am planning to sell quail skins for fly fishermen to tie flies so the plumage coloration differences are interesting to me.
