Breeding corturnix for egg color, or rather lack of color

[Sill]

Had anyone tried breeding their quail to get white or blue patternless eggs? I do notice some eggs are blue inside so I assume they are blue on the outside under all the mottling. Every once in a while I see an egg with no mottling. They are easier to candle of course, but I don't know if this trait is as inheritable as feather color and pattern. I would assume it is in quail since you can breed for egg color, or lack of it, with chickens. It seems like someone must have tried breeding for no pattern on their quail eggs. Anyone?

 

[DaisyQ12]

I am actually planning on it next year, but it sounds pretty rare to get ones that lay 'blank' eggs. It sounds kinda fun but I don't know if it'll happen, well see

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

I wanna say there is a thread for egg color genetics...? I know people breed for it in chickens (easter eggers?)

I dunno though. Have you tried a forum search for it?

 

[Sill]

I am actually planning on it next year, but it sounds pretty rare to get ones that lay 'blank' eggs. It sounds kinda fun but I don't know if it'll happen, well see

Please post your results, good or bad, for trying to breed for blank eggs. Yes it sounds like fun!

I wanna say there is a thread for egg color genetics...? I know people breed for it in chickens (easter eggers?)

I dunno though. Have you tried a forum search for it?

Would chicken egg color genetics work for quail? I don't know if the same genes are responsible for egg color in the two species. I know that white legbars have a gene that inhibits the expression of brown so even if you breed one to a brown egg layer the eggs will be white or at the very least a very pale cream. Since the patternless quail eggs seem so rare I don't know how it's inherited. Would a quail hen that lays a patternless egg always lay that way? Chickens only lay one color of egg, a brown layer won't ever suddenly lay a white or green egg (just maybe lighter or darker brown depending on the hen's laying cycle). Is it that way with quail?

Another thing that comes to mind is that quail are strictly ground birds so their eggs through the ages have been selected for speckled or mottled eggs. They blend into the background better. A bright white egg would be noticed by predators more quickly than the multicolored eggs so by natural selection the white eggs would have much less chance of hatching into quail to continue laying white eggs. The blank eggs have not been selected for in nature. What is surprising to me is that humans (who can't stop tinkering with creatures' genetic traits) would not have tried selecting for easier to candle white quail eggs. Maybe the white eggs are just sports that happen randomly to otherwise normal patterned egg layers? Thoughts?

 

[dc3085]

I'll try to dig it up for you but in one of the major university archives there is a research paper written specifically on breeding for egg color, or maybe it was a book i saw referenced in a paper, but work has been done and recorded on the subject.

Edit to add: you will find it mentioned in one of these articles if you feel like reading through them all.

http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0513.php?rp=P171147
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Coturnix_japonica.html
http://posc.tamu.edu/files/2012/08/jpquail1.pdf
http://ibc.lynxeds.com/species/japanese-quail-coturnix-japonica
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8155.pdf
http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/avian/japanesequail.pdf

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

I have a Pharaoh/jumbo hen that almost always lays a "blank" uncolored egg. She is normal and healthy but I usually don't set hers since the eggs are small, around 10 gm. Now you have me curious! I will read thru the articles.

 

[Sill]

I have a Pharaoh/jumbo hen that almost always lays a "blank" uncolored egg. She is normal and healthy but I usually don't set hers since the eggs are small, around 10 gm. Now you have me curious! I will read thru the articles.

Post some pics of her eggs if you don't mind, I'd love to see them! You say almost always. What does she lay when they are not blank? And I wonder what happens when she lays an egg that is not blank. This very different from chickens since a white layer like a leghorn would never lay an egg that wasn't white.

A 10 gram egg is small for a jumbo, but the quail eggs at my local Asian market weigh 10-12 grams so about a low average for the species.

 

[dc3085]

I'll put my head against it a little further when I get time. Anything we have thought of doing with a coturnix has been done and recorded. Even if the information isn't that helpful it's always interesting to see how far the breed has come (or digressed, depending on how you look at it).

You can definitely control egg color to some extent because I can identify offspring of certain birds by the eggs they lay, for several generations. Egg color carries on for generations so once you get control of it, it should be easy to manage. Also A&Ms (and some pharaohs) tend to produce mostly clear eggs with smaller speckles. If i was trying to breed for a blank egg, I would start with A&Ms. The same as i notice A&M eggs have smaller more even speckling, Tibetan and Rosetta birds usually produce an egg with large spots and no defined edges, basically the eggs look smeared. To date every blank egg I've set hasn't been fertile so make sure to keep fertility handy if you do get off the ground with this project, or it'll be short lived.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Will try to remember pics, its crazy here right now with all the gardening start up etc. We also raise turkey and other misc poultry, several types of waterfowl, goats, hogs... looking for calves...eieioooo