Blonde bird with my brunettes?

[KellyCluck]

I ordered a dozen jumbo brown coturnix quail eggs to incubate. They started hatching tonight. We have a blondie! What the heck is it? Are some of them this color, is this an albino, or maybe a different type of bird?

 

[dc3085]

Its normal. The pharaoh colored birds will pick up a recessive white gene if you cross them with english whites or a&ms. Just means the hen that layed that egg and the roo that covered her have the recessive white. That yellow chick will grow up to be white with a brown patch on its head/back. These are commonly called A&Ms but that isn't exactly the correct name.

 

[KellyCluck]

Very cool. I was surprised, as this is all new to me. Can the white ones be sexed by breast feather color?

 

[dc3085]

White birds have to be vent sexed or beer sexed. Beer sexing involves drinking on a lawn chair in front of the cage until it does something that identifies it as male or female lol.

In the quail notables there is a whole thread on coturnix coloring, it's quite interesting.