Breeding Question

[Swamp Roo]

Does one gender impact size more than the other in coturnix? Is it more important for the male or the female to be a large bird in order to breed for larger size, or is this not a sex linked trait and both parents need to be as large as possible?

Thanks,

Swamp

 

[Ironsun]

Hi,

When I select for size, I always choose the biggest birds I have in both sexes. I see no point in using smaller birds as these's will make nothing bigger.

When selecting, try not to feed for about 8-12 hours or over night beforehand, this will give you a better idea how heavy/light the birds are as they've not eaten and the crops and stomach are empty.

Ironsun.

 

[Swamp Roo]

Thanks Ironsun. The only reason I ask is if I have a particular bird that also has X characteristic I want such as for example docility but is a little smaller than another but more aggressive bird, how much it would "set me back" as it where. I'm just playing and in early stages right now, but was wondering just in case the situation came up. Nice tip on the no feed overnight, makes sense.

Swamp

 

[Ironsun]

Hi Swamp,

The question I see is, can docility be bred into the birds with little effect on size and growth?

I belivie docile birds are made and not inheredity. I say this because the way the chicks are reared.

I once had to place my brooder of 50 chicks in a different place from where I normally did. These chicks only saw me maybe twice a day to put food and fresh water in. So by the time they were ready to move on, they were very wild and flew out of the brooder when it was opened. It was a two man job moving them.

My brooders now are kept in a place where people and animals noise etc is common. These turn out totally different, tame and quite very easy to handle, weigh and to photograph. Even as adults these birds rarely try to escape, if they do they are very easy to pick up.

The point I'm trying to make is, the above two batches were from the same breeding group of 1 male and 4 female normals.

So if your starting from the begining, my advice is to just rear the birds docile and select the largest males from one batch and the largest unrelated females from another batch. I'm not over keen on inbreeding, because over time they lose size, fertility, hatcherbility of eggs produced.

This is the way I do it, other peoples idea's will be different.

Ironsun.

 

[Swamp Roo]

Hi Ironsun,
LOL, I was actually thinking of docility towards each other. While I also like them to not be flighty and to be friendly to me, I agree that is a more of an environmental factor. I was just using docility as an example, I had one of the males that I put in the big run come over and sit with me earlier (did not want to be touched though), the rest were chasing each other. It was on my mind. I might play with egg size to use a better example, but I expect that is likely to be a result of bird size for the most part.

Whenever my coturnix jump out of their pen, they frequently look up at me with this "okay now what" expression. I just bend over and pick them up. Frequently they make it all the way back into the pen by the time they decide they don't really want to be held. Funny little creatures.

Your methodology makes perfect sense to me...

Swamp