Jumbo Japanese quail and king quail

[Aussie92]

G'day all!

Brand new to raising quail but loving it so far!
Grew up on a farm in rural Australia and have my own home now with my wife closer to suburbia, so quail were an obvious choice with the smaller yard. We have a great compact garden with worm farms, veggies and now quail, aiming to be as sustainable as we can!

My question is as follows - can you ever have a viable breeding from a regular quail (in this case a mail king quail) and one of my female Jimbo Japanese quail?

I'm asking as I don't want to do anything to endanger either bird. Currently my 9 females are living in their hutch and having a great time. They are just about to reach laying age, and I wanted to breed a few more hatchlings to expand my flock.

So I have two questions:

1. Can a regular quail (~100g male) breed with a jumbo (~300g female)?

2. Can a king quail interbreed with a female Japanese quail and produce viable offspring (ie hatching and preferably not sterile?)

Thankyou in advance! And sorry if this is asked elsewhere - been searching online for the past two hours for a good answer but never found one so now asking here!

Cheers

 

[Chicken-lovebirdchihuahua]

Welcome

 

[Aussie92]

T

Welcome

Thankyou greetings from Down Under

 

[naf_appaz]

Cant answer your question cause I don't know...I have been raising jumbo brown coturnix for few years and have brought in Texas A&M roosters into my flock. They are white with random black spots its interesting to see the randomness (if that's a word) of the coloration on the offspring...Its important to introduce new bloodline into your flock often to keep them healthy. Never tried different species but imagine if they are similar it could work. Sounds a bit of a stretch for that big a difference in size, I enjoy the hobby as well. Good luck with it!

 

[Plip]

Welcome to BYC! Great to have you here!

There are really three issues to your question: 1) Can you get them to mate, 2) If they do mate, will they produce offspring, and 3) If they produce offspring, will the offspring be able to reproduce?

The short answers are: 1) I don't know (but I have my doubts), 2) Probably, and 3) Almost certainly no.

So I guess it depends what you mean by viable breeding. If you're trying to make one batch of hybrids, you might get lucky with just the right pair (or -- and I'm not sure how you'd do this -- if you were able to help him fertilize her). But if you want a viable ongoing program, it's probably not practical.

 

[DK newbie]

It might be genetically possible, but I think the physical differences are too big. The jumbos might attack the king quail and even if they don't I don't think he will even consider them things he can mate with. And if he does, and manages to jump on their backs, I don't think he'll be able to make vent contact.
Also, have you weighed your king quail? I haven't weighed any of mine, but according to the litterature I've read they are more like 50g than 100g. That's a huge difference compared to a jumbo coturnix..

 

[stephyyc]

Hi I know this is an old post but I would love to know if progress was made I had a male king quail he was lonely about a year old I got him off a man who got him paired and the hen escaped and he couldn’t find her at the time I could only get my hands on a jumbo hen she was a couple weeks old and already twice his size it was fun to watch him snuggle up and disappear I had read around couldn’t find anything on them being able to breed so I assumed they couldn’t they have been inside in a runner rat cage for a bit and today we moved them out into the aviary and found they had 2 eggs in thier little hide out bit shocked but now I wanna know if the eggs are viable and am thinking about taking them out and incubating them but am not sure if it’s worth it if I’ll have chicks or empty eggies

 

[FloorCandy]

Hi I know this is an old post but I would love to know if progress was made I had a male king quail he was lonely about a year old I got him off a man who got him paired and the hen escaped and he couldn’t find her at the time I could only get my hands on a jumbo hen she was a couple weeks old and already twice his size it was fun to watch him snuggle up and disappear I had read around couldn’t find anything on them being able to breed so I assumed they couldn’t they have been inside in a runner rat cage for a bit and today we moved them out into the aviary and found they had 2 eggs in thier little hide out bit shocked but now I wanna know if the eggs are viable and am thinking about taking them out and incubating them but am not sure if it’s worth it if I’ll have chicks or empty eggies

Someone else is doing this, maybe it was @pterry97 ? I’m not sure and apologize if I’m wrong. I believe there have been a lot of eggs, many developed, but all quit early.

 

[DK newbie]

Hi there @stephyyc Take a look at this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ese-painted-quail-and-japanese-quail.1484202/
It should tell/show everything you need to know to make up your mind on whether to put them in the incubator or not..