breeding for egg color?

[Quail27]

If I only incubate one look of coturnix eggs (say, non-speckled white ones), and only breed from hens that lay those types of eggs for the most part, will I eventually be able to produce a strain of coturnix that lays those types of eggs consistantly?
This thread was inspired by the purple egg thread.

 

[smallbluejellybean]

I suppose you could try. I still think you will get a couple of the offspring with that gene and most without. Maybe constant breeding would result in that outcome, but it would be way down the genetic path and after alot of inner breeding, which I wouldn't like to do.

 

[Quail27]

How did they create breeds of chickens to lay specific egg colors... like the dark dark brown, blues, greens, white, and light brown?

 

[smallbluejellybean]

They probably inner breed them. I just wouldn't like to have a deformity ewwww.

 

[zaylinda]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=278349&p=1

Here is a pretty intense article/series of posts that discusses how the dark-egg breeds were made. Some good info there, and yes, it does involve quite a bit of inbreeding.
-Zay

EDIT: In that thread - post #33, page 4, has the info on the backcrossing method.

 

[darkfur]

if you can handle scientific articles, you should be able to find one that talks about egg colour in quail
some traits such as the production of pure white eggs are definitely controlled by single genes
here's an example of an article about breeding for red egg shells (why you would want to do that I don't know)
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/66/3/141
as an aside somewhere I read that it would be a good idea to breed for eggs without speckles since then it is much easier to spot dirt on the egg before incubating

 

[zaylinda]

whoa, $25 to have access to that article for ONE DAY!

That study sounds interesting, but a bit outside my price range!

 

[mustanger]

I agree. 25 bucks is too much. I don't think you have to worry about inbreeding causing problems. It is done with a lot of different critters. I have horses and a lot of the horse breeds were developed that way. Missouri Fox Trotters are one of the most inbred breeds of horses out there. They got their start from a colt bred back to his mother. Another heavily inbred group are some lines of Arabians, like Blue Stars for example. Morgans are another group. I could go on and on. Definitely dark brown egg layers are a result of serious inbreeding. I wouldn't worry about it. Go for it!

David