Going to start my first project birds, what color should I breed? (celadon breeding)

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

Hello! I am really wanting to start a project flock. I kind of started with chickens but im not patient enough. So I decided I would breed quail instead. For whatever reason I really want to breed celadons in my favorite quail color. I really really like Italians. But I'm by no means an expert by now. Only just started really researching. Is there any problems with breeding Italians in terms of genetics? Or any other color? I hear Italian celadons are really rare so that is partially why I wanted to do this. Im kind of doing this for fun but also in hopes of maybe selling a few hatching eggs if anyone even wanted them. Also if any of you have bred celadons for awhile any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[muddy75]

Hello! I am really wanting to start a project flock. I kind of started with chickens but im not patient enough. So I decided I would breed quail instead. For whatever reason I really want to breed celadons in my favorite quail color. I really really like Italians. But I'm by no means an expert by now. Only just started really researching. Is there any problems with breeding Italians in terms of genetics? Or any other color? I hear Italian celadons are really rare so that is partially why I wanted to do this. Im kind of doing this for fun but also in hopes of maybe selling a few hatching eggs if anyone even wanted them. Also if any of you have bred celadons for awhile any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

@Nabiki has a celadon covey.
The only concern with Italians is that there is a lethal gene associated with the golds.....I believe there is actually an article here that discusses it.

 

[Nabiki]

I've been working on changing the colours of my celadons, but it's a long term project that I'm not in any hurry on. Most of mine are tibetan tuxes with a few silvers. I've been getting more silvers since I have a grau fee and a silver roo in my pen.

Like the Italians, you don't want to breed silver to silver too much or you end up with some bad consequences. I'm never going to get rid of the tibetans for that reason. You might be able to get Italian celadons, but don't expect a 100% Italian celadon covey.

 

[Ravenlover]

Hello! I am really wanting to start a project flock. I kind of started with chickens but im not patient enough. So I decided I would breed quail instead. For whatever reason I really want to breed celadons in my favorite quail color. I really really like Italians. But I'm by no means an expert by now. Only just started really researching. Is there any problems with breeding Italians in terms of genetics? Or any other color? I hear Italian celadons are really rare so that is partially why I wanted to do this. Im kind of doing this for fun but also in hopes of maybe selling a few hatching eggs if anyone even wanted them. Also if any of you have bred celadons for awhile any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Healthy albino celadons !!!

 

[FloorCandy]

I’ve been working on snowie celadons. I ordered snowie hatching eggs, and I put a celadon roo with the hens and silver Roos with my celadon hens. I was lucky, and some of the original group of snowie, pearl and Italian carried celadon, and I have several blue layers in the second generation, one is a pearl with 1 copy of fee. My end goal is to have a group of celadon snowie hens with pearl Roos, since double SSC is problematic. And also to have an autumn amber roo for my sex link pen. It’s a fun project, it’s exciting to hatch out a big group of chicks, pick my favorites and sell the rest. I recommend breeding for celadon first, and not worry about color too much until you’re sure you have a double celadon male.

 

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

thank you all for the information! Seems like this is even more complicated than I thought . Do any of you guys know of any articles or YouTube videos that gives some info on how the different colors are related? I thought I knew a fair amount but I have not heard of double SSC problems, or lethal genes related to Italians. So maybe with what y'all are saying with not breeding Italians to Italians too much, I should keep some other color of celadons, and breed those in every once and awhile to avoid problems. Currently all my quail are for meat, so I would just cull any non-italian quail.

 

[muddy75]

thank you all for the information! Seems like this is even more complicated than I thought . Do any of you guys know of any articles or YouTube videos that gives some info on how the different colors are related? I thought I knew a fair amount but I have not heard of double SSC problems, or lethal genes related to Italians. So maybe with what y'all are saying with not breeding Italians to Italians too much, I should keep some other color of celadons, and breed those in every once and awhile to avoid problems. Currently all my quail are for meat, so I would just cull any non-italian quail.

As far as colors go, myshire has a YouTube video series all about the colors that gives some breeding information from their experience. The lethal gene in the SSC has been discussed by Perry Schofield mainly on coturnix corner lives and coturnix corner facebook group most recently. Kdale coturnix has also posted a color breeding “cheat sheet” to their facebook page. I’m trying to find time and collaborate with a few people on here to put some of this information into a new article on BYC. Hopefully we can get it done in the next few weeks.

 

[FloorCandy]

thank you all for the information! Seems like this is even more complicated than I thought . Do any of you guys know of any articles or YouTube videos that gives some info on how the different colors are related? I thought I knew a fair amount but I have not heard of double SSC problems, or lethal genes related to Italians. So maybe with what y'all are saying with not breeding Italians to Italians too much, I should keep some other color of celadons, and breed those in every once and awhile to avoid problems. Currently all my quail are for meat, so I would just cull any non-italian quail.

It’s my understanding that the problems with golden Italians has been mostly worked out as far as the big hatcheries and breeders are concerned. Also, keep in mind that SSC and Italian are incompletely dominant, so if you cross a manchurian (double Italian) to a non Italian, all offspring will show pretty significant evidence of their Italian lineage. So it’s easy to just choose safe mixes in your pens. You can outcross for diversity and then breed back to a more clean Italian look, after.

If you’re eating them, you’re home free, save the few you think are really attractive and eat the rest. Many people get caught up in breeding, and they can’t bring themselves to cull the males. Here at FloorCandy farms (just kidding) we eat the boys and sell the girls for the most part. I had kept some pure celadon boys to offer to people buying my hens and many didn’t want them, so I have 9 Quail in my freezer, ready for the oven. my bachelor pad is for the one original snowie manchurian I decided to keep, and the other 4 males I swap in and out of the pens. It’s hard, but I have a rule of no more than 6 permanent boys in that pen. It usually only has 3.

 

[FloorCandy]

I forgot to mention that your other option for silvery colored birds is the German pastel collection. You can get various shades of gray/blue without the worry of lethal interaction. The downside is that there are so many colors in the collection that if you order eggs, even a large amount, you will likely get only a few of the colors you want. It is my hope to get some gpc birds once I’ve got snowie celadons, and to start working on a gpc based snowie. So once I do, I hope to start with a pen of a gpc snowie male over SSC snowie hens, and to work more gpc in over time.

Btw, the whole reason I started this project was because I contacted probably about a dozen hatcheries, online sellers, and eBay sellers asking if they have Italian celadons, and I couldn’t find any. I contacted an eBay seller claiming to have Italian, pansy, and sparkly celadon hatching eggs for sale, but when I asked about a guarantee they said there was none, and then I got a song and dance about how they’re mainly Rosetta and roux, but they have a couple of the others in there so I could get “lucky” blah blah. There’s only a 70% rate of hatching true celadons, some are from normal eggs and are just carriers... I got the impression they didn’t have what they claimed, and they might throw in a normal egg saying it was a carrier to be able to say I got what was advertised.