How About a Jumbo Co Op

[Buttercup Chillin]

Quote:
I trust them, like their parents to choose mates from the Pen 3. THis is what their parents did, sort of they choose the oposites rather than their siblings.
If you give them a choice they will choose other than sibling. Exception is Big Bad Bertha, she wanted her mate and her brother probably. BUT he is never allowed to mate with her. He has his own girls.

You can't be for real , letting them run together, trust them not to mate with their sibling......males will mate with any female that are penned with them. they don't pair up, unless you are there 24/7 noway can you be sure they are not breeding brother and sister

I guess i needed to spell it completely out. I let them choose their mate, while in the growout pen starting at week 4. I don't care who mates who there, its a grow out pen. THEN, when I am ready at week 6 I start weighing them, Week 7 I weigh and tag the breeders.

They may stay in there until I am ready to process or if I have a pen ready, the breeders go to a breeder pen. I do not collect eggs for hatching until they are at week 10 or 12. I want them to be past adolescence and I want the eggs and yolk large. 8 week old eggs are nice but 10 week eggs are better. By then they have their hormones in check. Just the way I do it. I consider younger than 10 weeks adolescents. I don't collect eggs for hatching from my Buttercups from yearlings either, they have to be laying a season before I hatch their eggs. I want big eggs that produvce big chicks that come out hungry. And I get it in both species.

 

[deerman]

Quote:
You can't be for real , letting them run together, trust them not to mate with their sibling......males will mate with any female that are penned with them. they don't pair up, unless you are there 24/7 noway can you be sure they are not breeding brother and sister

I guess i needed to spell it completely out. I let them choose their mate, while in the growout pen starting at week 4. I don't care who mates who there, its a grow out pen. THEN, when I am ready at week 6 I start weighing them, Week 7 I weigh and tag the breeders.

They may stay in there until I am ready to process or if I have a pen ready, the breeders go to a breeder pen. I do not collect eggs for hatching until they are at week 10 or 12. I want them to be past adolescence and I want the eggs and yolk large. 8 week old eggs are nice but 10 week eggs are better. By then they have their hormones in check. Just the way I do it. I consider younger than 10 weeks adolescents. I don't collect eggs for hatching from my Buttercups from yearlings either, they have to be laying a season before I hatch their eggs. I want big eggs that produvce big chicks that come out hungry. And I get it in both species.

So do you breed brother to sister, father to daughter, or do they pick their mate. Myself I think a closed flock works best. New blood can wipe out years of hard work, if not added with care.

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

Quote:
Look at my Jan 1 Hatch. The eggs were numbered with pen #'s.
Pen 1 Female Browns with Gold pen stripes / Male Brown with red flecks, cream stripes. The 2 Brown varieties crossing for the F1's.
Pen 3 is the reverse. Pen 3 is also from the breeder several monthes later, different parents.
I used pen 1 to produce all eggs for F1. ( Pen 3 were to young to lay at that point).
Pen 5 F1's

Combined all eggs, the chicks are growing well. I trust them, like their parents to choose mates from the Pen 3. THis is what their parents did, sort of they choose the oposites rather than their siblings. I grow them out together in a grow out pen. The largest always hang out at the sandbox. Only the preferred male is allowed in the sandbox with the largest female.
If you give them a choice they will choose other than sibling. Exception is Big Bad Bertha, she wanted her mate and her brother probably. BUT he is never allowed to mate with her. He has his own girls.

I have time, I watch my birds alot throughout the day. Very relaxing.

If I were going forward. I would do the same with pen 3 to produce that variety F1. I would actually set eggs from both parent pens and both F1's for the 2nd. Then continue the pattern. But I got sidetracked with hatching the Whites so they wouldn't be lost. That is why I still have the original parents and felt I needed to rest them. I have to back track and deal with Pen 3 and hatch from them.

2 varieties hatched then bred together. A stagered line breeding. It stagers back and forth. I do not save males. I do have extra females. You are going to need them. Large fast growth along with large eggs is very hard on the females. I do not switch males. If eggs are not fertile. I don't hatch. They take a break from time to time, I notice its when there is a big change in the weather. Takes a few days to get back in form. No big deal for me. (But I can see where it would be for breeders that sell).

I did the Jan 1 hatch to show you a way to go forward with this Jumbo Brown line- just the Browns. But I am going back to using all 4 varieties in a similar breeding program. But the varieties will be separated by a crossing and then a different brown each time. I think it will take 2 years to go through 1 cycle. I have patience.

I have been told for years that line breeding does not work in Coturnix. You loose the size. I don't know about the color, but other problems develope evidently. My birds have been breed for years with 4 varieties 2 of which are 2 different looking Jumbo Browns. I do not line breed per say. Its a stagered line using 2 different varieties of browns. Not 2 different lines of browns 2 different varieties. The birds are different in looks. I have crossed them twice and they still are different in looks.

If you have both varieties in a pen the females will only mate with the opposite. My Big Bad Bertha killed any male that tried to mate with her that she didn't want. She killed 3 males to get her point across. As she was the biggest bird out there, she did what she wanted. I observed. The Big Birds are not always so nice. That first pen, I did not at first realize what had happened. By the time I hatched another batch I saw the difference in the birds in the 1st breeder pen and set the next one up opposite. No plan, I just did it. And went forward. Each crossing is getting bigger. Everyone has trouble with the 3rd generation, but I don't think this would have a problem.

Any more, I have no problem like that 1st batch. But I keep about 100 birds and they definately talk to each other. Those adults talk to the babies, when I first put them out in the brooder, and the babies quiet right down. The grow out pen is across from the breeder pens and the adults get real excited when the babies turn 4 weeks and get moved to the grow out pen. Happy Happy, talking back and forth, singing, they get a little rowdy with their calling contests sometimes.

So yes, I trust them to pick the opposite, but I also make certain. Others can do the same by taging the different breedings with different colored leg bands and brooding the young separate until they are old enough to get the bands. That is why I said somewhere that I was going to get 6 different colored bands for each hatching to keep track of them once they leave the breeder pens and go to the big covey pens. Then I can pull them back out to breed again for a later hatch. The big pens are new and not yet finished, so I'll see how that works later. But it should.

But it is very hard to have a closed flock in Coturnix. I have read that flocks for that have 100-120 breeders and I am talking just hens. I don't know how they breed them. So I am going to experiment. I will have around 100-120 Hens between my 4 varieties when I am done building them up. I'll have to figure it out as I go.

Well this is another book. In the mean time, I'll work on 365 days of quail recipes. Not really. But I probably have 50 or so.

 

[deerman]

Buttercup, that not a control breeding letting females pick mates, coturnix males don't pair up, it more like they rape the females like chickens do.


That is crazy, thinking the female will pick only mates from the other group. NOWAY can you be sure if house together they will not mate. If anything the lighter weight males would be easier to breed more females than heavier males.

 

[RiverOtter]

It's not crazy if that's what she observes.
One thing I KNOW about critters of every kind - I'll never know everything.
They'll always surprise you. And even your chicken example, I guess it's a matter of space and age. I ended up with 5 Barred Rock roos to 3 BR hens. Which roo to keep? The hens picked him. He's the one they don't run from, they crouch when he dances and he is never more then 4 feet from his "best girl". Now that all the roosters are past their horny adolescent stage, there is much more courting and almost no raping. Roosters will defend their favorite girls from other roosters, and if she likes him too, she'll let him, if not, she'll take the chance to run.

Big Red, who I think is a butt-ugly bird, got his name and his reprieve from the crockpot when just out of the brooder. All my girls apparently think he's Clark Gable because they adore him. The hens DO have preferences if you're there to watch.

But (especially as I have waay too many roosters) if I had no time to observe them or had them crowded so they couldn't display these behaviors, there would be a different story, wouldn't there?

I wouldn't think it's too far out there to believe to hear that given a choice (especially as, unlike chickens, the hens are bigger and meaner) cortunix hens would show a preference. And why wouldn't they go for an unrelated bird? It is a proven fact throughout the bird world that females are picky about their mates.
Everyone knows females go for males with brighter plumage - why?
Because the color of a male's plumage intensifies with age. An older male has proven himself a survivor, that's better genetic material right there.
I can't tell a male lovebird, or most kinds of parrot actually, from a female, but they have no problem telling. It's something I can't see. Maybe there's something we can't see that tells a cortunix who is the most genetically diverse from herself? Who knows?

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

Quote:
Don't forget what I am breeding. I am talking about the biggest Coturnix, not Pharoah size, not even the small end of the Jumbo size. These are big girls with an attitude at that young age, once they get a little older they settle down. The girls are bigger than the boys come breeding age. 2 Varieties. You can see the difference.

They choose their mate, they are the only boys allowed in the sandbox with them. Or in that area. I am serious, they will kill anyone else that tries. It is best to choose the breeders and get them to their pens or remove the smaller birds to different grow out pens. I am talking about a 2 week time frame, not 2 months. However you want to do it.

For those that asked. I set up 5-6F/1M in each hatching for breeding pairs. (Big Bad Bertha is an exception, her pen is different- hopefully you won't get one of her daughters - or maybe you will).
I want at least 4F from each, but I select a few extra incase. Incase I blew it and they don't get along and one kills the other. Incase, one ups and dies on me in a hard freeze (ok Laugh Martha, I saw you look at where I live), then I still have my 4. Both of these incase's have happened.

Who said I had to control all mating during the times I am not even collecting hatching eggs?
Who said I even have to set them up in breeding pens?
Many people raise them in large Coveys. Or smaller coveys of 20-25, or less.

This is the way I did it. Its just a suggestion. If you don't like it, try another way.
I can think of about 6 different methods of breeding these birds. At some point I will probably try them all, with my birds.

When I came on this section. People talked about growing them out and raising them. No one talked about breeding them, no one. Made me wonder, if anyone knew how. Some have even been warned not to give breeding information.

Don't be afraid of the genetics of the color Mutations. The only pure bred Coturnix is the wild color, the brown. All others are mutations thrown by the browns. All browns throw mutations sooner or later.

That is why I asked for the Color Mutations Thread to be stickied. So you would be aware of at least some of the color mutations and other mutations that occur naturally. The more people that breed the Coturnix the more often the Mutations will come up and new Mutations may show up.

That's why the CO-OP is nice. Different people in different areas of the country raising for the same purpose, trying different methods and most likely using different feed.
The eggs I am sending, these birds have at least 4 mutations that I see, and maybe 6. They have been around a while.

 

[deerman]

Yes the color mutation have been around for many years, I had 4 different ones in 1964.....

The whole point I am making unless you seperate brothers and sisters they will breed.....but if you pen only one male with females then you are control who mates with who......just noway if females are picking their own mate, they know if its their father or brother.

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

Shall we move on. I may not have the rest of my life to give you breeding tips for these birds.

When I was setting up my first 2 cages I was trying to set the first batch with the Browns with the Gold strips... THe second batch 2 months later with the Browns with red necks and flecks of red with the cream stipes. THey didn't want to do that. So I had to set up the 2nd batch opposit of the first. (Explained description in above post somewhere).

I once asked why keep the M Gold Males. I never received a reply on BYC. On e-mail yes. Now its on the web in the Recessive Black and Yellow study with the Fawn Mutations of 2008.

(When breeding the yellow mutation (M Gold) with recessives (wild- normal browns) Breed yellow F/M wild but to get slightly more Golds, in next generation breed wild F/M yellow. Flip flop them. This study was on the recessive black, but shows how to try to work with recessives in breeding multiple mutations. The fawn mutation is the opposite it seems, which actually makes sense. ) Someone please check that Table 1 and make sure I didn't flip it around, I could not figure out how to print that table.

So I knew I had the 4 mutations to work with after the first batch. If I was going to try for more M Golds (my favorite) I wanted 2 breeder pens of each color to flop back and forth. I have yet to try it.
But it is a point to start at and a reason to breed the male M Golds with browns that are carrying recessive black, but in the 2nd breeding not the first. (And here I was about to cull them all- actually I did the first batch). I figure if the Gold is in one Jumbo Brown and the Cream with black and red specks are in the other this is the way to breed them. Because the one with cream I am sure is carrying recessive Black. Some kind of black. So flip the 2 varieties of Jumbo Browns back and forth is what I was trying to do. THe birds did it faster and easier for me. Smart little Birdies.

So if I want them kissing cousins, I need them from 2 separate breedings of same age birds. Why I plan to hatch together, but separate in different hatchers or separate during lockdown and keep separate in brooding.

Their instinct to covey is still very strong. If you look back I had some of my first batch in a 4'x4' extra grow out pen that was way to tall. But they coveyed in groups of 20-25. Extras -mostly all small males fluttering about on the outskirts of the 3 groups of birds. So if that instinct is still strong, they will pick their best mates to continue their covey. Sending the extras fluttering about on the outskirts of the covey as they can't get away and start their own covey.

Like JJMR says Beer sex them. Spend time studying your birds to understand them better not just see who is male and who is female. Hope this helps. I think this is the last tip, too. Enjoy your birds.

 

[RiverOtter]

Got your email - thanks!!! Very informative!

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

OK, folks I finally found the protein study that might help you in the north. Take a look and see what you think. I am still trying to figure out how it can help me or if it does.

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:186345