Breeding for celadon gene

[BarelyLequail]

I got my start with quail last spring. Ordered 12 hatching eggs, toddler broke 1, 6 hatched, 4 lived. A lot of tragic beginner mistakes. However the eggs I ordered had some blue eggs mixed in and I had one celadon hen. That hen wedged herself behind something, got stuck, and died. Another hard lesson. The other hen tunneled out and flew away. So no hens but we had eggs in the incubator and now I have the 2 original males and the 5 hens we hatched. 2 of the 5 hens started laying but no blue eggs. If the remaining 3 also lay beige then can I introduce celadon chicks from a good breeder or is it not worth the effort? I read that one breeder bred for the celadon gene, created a pure line, then introduced jumbo quail to increase the size, and made the line pure again. Could I just do that backwards? Like breed big birds then introduce a celadon bloodline? I don't understand genetics :/ all I know is its a rare and recessive gene so oof.

 

[Quaicken108]

Firstly
I’m so sorry to hear about your losses. As for celadons, they’re rare and if you happen to find them I wouldn’t introduce them into a batch that seem fine. You could always have multiple bloodlines and then connect them also which depends on your space and what you’d want them for. Their eggs are beautiful though!

 

[BarelyLequail]

My space is limited, I have a 100 sq ft coop under my deck and 2 small brooder bins. So it's a good set up but I can't do much sorting. However good news, another hen just laid a squishy blue egg. No pic cuz its a yucky first try on her part but I believe that means at least one of my original roosters has the celadon gene??

 

[FloorCandy]

The celadon gene is recessive. There’s a lot of speculation, some say if an egg is blue inside, the hen carries one copy of the gene. I don’t know if this is true. If you have one laying blue eggs, then the parents each had at least 1 copy. If you want more blue layers, cross that hen to her father.

You can absolutely breed large egg layers and then cross in celadon, or vice versa. You want to make certain you have a roo who has 2 copies of the celadon gene. Tracking that celadon gene in males is vital to a celadon project. If a hen has two copies of the gene, she lays blue eggs, to know for sure if a male does, you need to breed a lot of chicks with celadon hens to see if 100% of the hens hatched lay blue, then you know the roo has 2 copies.