Breeding toward quail egg colors?🤔

[Crestcrazy2]

Do you think it is possible ?!?
So there's speckles eggs , blotchy eggs , celodon eggs and randoms ,
So if you were to breed quail that lay the majority of speckled eggs together after some generations would they lay only speckled ?
Let me know if there's already a thread about this !

Thanks in advance
Josh

 

[Kale the Quail]

Do you think it is possible ?!?
So there's speckles eggs , blotchy eggs , celodon eggs and randoms ,
So if you were to breed quail that lay the majority of speckled eggs together after some generations would they lay only speckled ?
Let me know if there's already a thread about this !

Thanks in advance
Josh

that's a really interesting question, I'd love to hear what others say, I don't know much about genetics though. So I'll stick around.

 

[Fenrisulfr]

Interesting question.
As every hen got its own speckled pattern, I assume that it is genetic related.

But this is just a guess, I have no proof of this.

 

[Crestcrazy2]

These were all layed by my only adult cot hen ! I washed the coloring off the two of them as a joke for my brother but what I'm getting at is maybe it's not possible because all these different colors were layed by the same hen do any of you think the diet helps with color?!?

 

[le_bwah]

I've noticed each of my hens has her own unique pattern with little variation day to day. I can't think of a way to test for heritability except careful breeding. Even if the exact pattern of blotches/speckles isn't heritable (like fingerprints), maybe the exact shade on the brown/blue spectrum is? Cool to think about regardless.

 

[Crestcrazy2]

I've noticed each of my hens has her own unique pattern with little variation day to day. I can't think of a way to test for heritability except careful breeding. Even if the exact pattern of blotches/speckles isn't heritable (like fingerprints), maybe the exact shade on the brown/blue spectrum is? Cool to think about regardless.

Wow that's cool mine lay eggs that as you can see from the picture above are all over the place

 

[Quailobsessed]

I have a hen who's eggs have been a large variety of colours. She's had 'regular' speckled, pale speckled, completely white and even some possible celadons.

 

[HeatherN]

I don't do so myself, but you should be able to select animals that lay the types of eggs you'd like to shoot for.
For instance, say you are breeding for something simple like blue/celadon eggs. They are a simple recessive gene (should be plenty of online resources to learn basic genetic principles for those curious). You know a female who is laying celadon eggs has two copies of the celadon allele (some people call it a gene) and its offspring will have at least one copy of the celadon allele. There's a good chance any offspring from that hen will carry the allele and will likely produce celadon hens if they breed to another celadon allele carrier.
That means that if you want to produce a consistently celadon-laying group of quail, you should use males that hatched from celadon-laying hens. Breed those females to other celadon-laying hens or hens that hatched from celadon-laying hens.
Here is a link to one seller's explanation of the celadon gene.

In theory, this sort of technique should work for other egg traits as well, though they will likely not be as simple as the gene that controls the celadon egg color. For instance, you could probably breed for much more brown speckled eggs over time by breeding females who tend to deposit a lot of the brown pigment on their eggs. That would take much longer than celadon though and I have not tried it or heard of anyone who has. It's a practice much more common in chickens if I understand correctly.

 

[Crestcrazy2]

Ok my quail is crazy ! She laid the completely brown egg a week ago and today a yellow egg !

Edit . Also I didn't wash the egg above, this one's natural

 

[Crestcrazy2]

I MIGHT try my own idea and see if it works !! I got some eggs for my bday and six hatched ! Two unfortunately died, one of unknown causes and one was underweight and wouldn't eat and one flew away so I don't know if it's alive but I'ma say it's a goner ! Three down gahh why !!!

Anyway ...three are left and looking good, two males and one female .
I've got two adult cot hens and I'm going to get more to even out the ratio . I'm going to try and breed for egg color as soon as they start laying good, healthy eggs !

Hope this works !!