Genetics in Japanese quail is so difficult because so many people have crossed everything with every conceivable color variant available, and not kept good records.I wish I could say I understood more about the genetics of my birds after this hatch, but if anything it is the opposite.
I got four "normal" charcoals, two I would call charcoal rosettas that look like his siblings, and that sandy thing from my avatar bird. Beats me.
His sister, my charcoal rosetta female, threw a dilute pharoah thing I've never seen before.
The roux male I'm about to cull threw a roux pullet with my blue italian hen, which theoretically means she must ALSO carry it somehow.
The males do all seem to be silver and females blue, but there's also at least two distinct shades of silver in my young males, one much sandier and one much more of a steel blue.
That silver and italian somehow threw a pearl. If he is actually a pearl, why didn't he just dilute to become a snowie?
I have had a hunch for a while there are at least two different genes behind the black patterning on pearls - one genetically the same as the italians and one different. Does that confirm it?
One of my older hens that I thought was a falb fee I think is actually a lavender. There are so few photos to compare to and I'd never seen the color in person before! That or a homozygous falb fee? It's an incomplete dominant theoretically. Who knows. I got another one in the newer hatch.
So there's no telling what you might or might not get, even with a 'normal' phenotypical looking Pharoah quail.
That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it!
I really wish I hadn't lost track of the parents but I'm 90% sure he is from my silver x italian pair. The roo is from a bloodline riddled with pearls; he must be masking something, and the female is from a local flock. 
