➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[007Sean]

View attachment 1807523 View attachment 1807524 View attachment 1807525 View attachment 1807526 View attachment 1807527

Pic#1 female
Pic#2 ? Doesn't have any of the characteristics it should
Pic#3 female
Pic#4 female
Pic#5 ? Same as #2
These are Black melanistics. Mine are Green and Blue melanistics. I had Blacks but didn't really care for the way they looked.
But all 3 color variations look the same except the Blacks have black down, and the Green and Blue have chocolate brown down.
There's 3 different color variants of Green melanistics.

Black Melanistic chicks

Black Melanistic male

Black melanistic hen

Green Melanistic pair

Green Melanistic male (variant)2

Green Melanistic male (variant)3

Blue Melanistic male

Blue Melanistic male

Hope this will give you some help when trying to figure out which melanistics you have when they mature.

 

[muddy75]

That's so awesome. I think you will like them so much. What kind are they?

Be careful though. I know me with quail, me with rabbits (they are even more addictive. I should have 2-3 and I actually have 6, with plans for more), you with quail (THE HORDE), and now I am envisioning you with rabbits.

they are new zealand white stock. straight meat rabbits. I made sure to let my sister and brother-in-law pick them from their April litters so I would not even be tempted!!! They breed pretty strictly for size and yield with white being preferred color for butcher. She still has a red buck that she recently bred to a white wanting red babies and full litter is black!!! evidently rabbit genetics can get a bit sticky as well!! hahaha

 

[muddy75]

Pic#1 female
Pic#2 ? Doesn't have any of the characteristics it should
Pic#3 female
Pic#4 female
Pic#5 ? Same as #2
These are Black melanistics. Mine are Green and Blue melanistics. I had Blacks but didn't really care for the way they looked.
But all 3 color variations look the same except the Blacks have black down, and the Green and Blue have chocolate brown down.
There's 3 different color variants of Green melanistics.

Black Melanistic chicks
View attachment 1807748

Black Melanistic male
View attachment 1807746

Black melanistic hen
View attachment 1807745

Green Melanistic pair
View attachment 1807747

Green Melanistic male (variant)2
View attachment 1807749
Green Melanistic male (variant)3
View attachment 1807752

Blue Melanistic male
View attachment 1807750

Blue Melanistic male
View attachment 1807751

Hope this will give you some help when trying to figure out which melanistics you have when they mature.

Thank you!! that lines up with what I was thinking based on your original description that the 2 were “oddballs”. They are Hoover Hatchery stock which only pictures an adult blue male so ??? Will see how these turn out but definitely not doing hatchery chicks again. I will incubate my own as surely will be able to get 50%!!! ( lost another female last night) so 50% in 3 days! same situation as the ringneck batch....look great and then get sleepy and die. I’ve done heat lamp, brooder plate, nutridrench, quality feed etc....even tried reviving once showing signs. (i wonder if they are eating bedding during shipping or 24 hours+/- before i get them???)

 

[le_bwah]

Unless you handle them everyday, multiple times a day...they will become 'hand shy', some may never really tame down anyway, no matter what you do!
My Golden pheasants were extremely tame because I handled them everyday all day long as chicks. Their offspring in turn were as tame as a baby puppy. And in turn, their offspring are tame as well.... weird how that works.
I have some Bob's that are the same way....you can handle them, pick them up and they aren't scared or try to flush at all.
It all depends on how much attention/ handling they are given when growing. At least that has been my experiences.

That's about what I figured. I had more free time with my first two hatches, but I've been "neglecting" to handle these chicks quite as much. Good thing I'm not looking for a lap quail—I just need these birdies to look good and lay eggs in comfort.

@le_bwah

#1 is a tibetan tuxedo

#2/3 are pearl-fee

#4/6 are rosetta (one tuxedo). Great pattern on that first one, I had a bunch like that pop out last hatch and they sold lickity-split.

#5 is a "tan" silver (I don't have a better name for them yet and I'm not sure anyone else does - they seem to pop up from my regular silvers sometimes But also look a lot like my silver pharoahs. I'm running quite a few experimental crosses to figure them out next hatch)

Cool! Thank you for the color info—I'd otherwise have no clue on the majority of them this hatch. Even the one who are the same color have slight variances. It's so fun to watch them grow!

 

[le_bwah]

How to make quail "dog tame"??? Dog LOVES watching birds so I'm sure she'll be all up in the aviary walls watching them forever

Introduce them at an early age.

My dog hovered around the brooder (supervised, of course) for all of my hatches. He got his big dumb nose right up in their faces the moment I put them in. I think they know him better than they know me .

Now he stands and stares at the adults in the aviary, sometimes pawing at the hardware cloth or booping it with his nose. He never barks (but sometimes whines). Only one of my hens is skittish around him, the others will stay right within snapping distance and go about their business.

 

[CoturnixComplex]

they are new zealand white stock. straight meat rabbits. I made sure to let my sister and brother-in-law pick them from their April litters so I would not even be tempted!!! They breed pretty strictly for size and yield with white being preferred color for butcher. She still has a red buck that she recently bred to a white wanting red babies and full litter is black!!! evidently rabbit genetics can get a bit sticky as well!! hahaha

Yarp. @Sara L and I have been puzzling lots of rabbit genetics mysteries out lately xD Red-eyed white is totally recessive to other genes in that spot, so if the red buck didn't carry it none of the babies would express it.

I think the red needs two copies of the recessive non-extension gene too. So it makes sense she didn't get any. Tell her to breed a daughter back to him!

 

[007Sean]

Thank you!! that lines up with what I was thinking based on your original description that the 2 were “oddballs”. They are Hoover Hatchery stock which only pictures an adult blue male so ??? Will see how these turn out but definitely not doing hatchery chicks again. I will incubate my own as surely will be able to get 50%!!! ( lost another female last night) so 50% in 3 days! same situation as the ringneck batch....look great and then get sleepy and die. I’ve done heat lamp, brooder plate, nutridrench, quality feed etc....even tried reviving once showing signs. (i wonder if they are eating bedding during shipping or 24 hours+/- before i get them???)

I've never ordered pheasants from a hatchery. I've always hatched my own, or from shipped eggs. The problem with some hatcheries is that they get their pheasants on consignment, so you never really know what your going to get or where they are coming from, If I just wanted ring necked pheasants, I would get them from MacFarlane's, they raise and breed their own birds and have a very strict biosecurity program...less likely to get a diseased bird.

Those 2 chicks are a mystery and most likely a cross between a melanistic and a mongolian, sometimes they advertise them as 'Jumbo's', which are 6 to 7lbs at maturity. Also, they cross a Chinese Ring Necked with a Mongolian and call them Jumbos but those chicks don't have the 'racing stripes' so I'm going to guess they are a Mongolian x Melanistic cross.

I have a Mongolian x Chinese Ring Necked cockbird that is absolutely gorgeous. It happened by mistake when I inadvertently put a Mongolian hen in a pen with my wild Kansas Ring Necked cockbird.
Here's the results:

Here's a pic of a Mongolian cockbird for comparison.

 

[Rhiannon_In_Nature]

Day 0! All celadon this time! Trying a lower initial humidity too.

 

[Nabiki]

Day 0! All celadon this time! Trying a lower initial humidity too. View attachment 1808048

It looks like you have the same incubator that I have (I actually have two, because the first one to arrive had a non-functioning egg turner, and they replaced the whole thing). I've fired mine up a couple of times and it seems to run a bit cool. How does yours do? My first batch of eggs is supposed to ship in a week and a half.

 

[Rhiannon_In_Nature]

The temp has been very consistent throughout most of it. I would definitely get a second hygrometer to watch the humidity. Mine is off by about 6%.