Lavender quail?

[MichelleKing]

I hatched a bunch of different breed quails.
They’re all absolutely gorgeous. One though is gray. Is this the lavender type quail? If so are they not very common and should I attempt to breed it? I have never seen a lavender quail except maybe this one. Lighting is bad because of th bulb but it’s really gray colored.

It’s the one sitting.

In this pic it’s behind the white one.

 

[JaeG]

What a pretty quail! We don't have the silvery ones in my country but they are a mutation of the Pharaoh colour. I think the lighter silvers are called platinum. I don't think you can breed silver to silver because they have a lethal gene which means some eggs won't hatch but breeding them to the Pharaoh colour is the way to go.

 

[MichelleKing]

What a pretty quail! We don't have the silvery ones in my country but they are a mutation of the Pharaoh colour. I think the lighter silvers are called platinum. I don't think you can breed silver to silver because they have a lethal gene which means some eggs won't hatch but breeding them to the Pharaoh colour is the way to go.

This is really good information. In your opinion what do you think would happen if I bred to the Texas A&M ones?

 

[007Sean]

As far as I know there is no lethal gene with the lavender mutation, due to 3 non-lethal consecutive overlapping chromosomal changes being involved. They will have lower metabolism rates, which lead to lower body temperature and a lower weight than regular wild type Japanese quail. They also tend to consume more feed than the wild type.
The Golden Italian has the Y (yellow) lethal gene. And you shouldn't pair two Golden Italians for breeding.
The lavender and the white (A&M) quail can be paired for breeding. You can work out what percent of each phenotype color and mixes can be expected via Punnets Square.

 

[MichelleKing]

As far as I know there is no lethal gene with the lavender mutation, due to 3 non-lethal consecutive overlapping chromosomal changes being involved. They will have lower metabolism rates, which lead to lower body temperature and a lower weight than regular wild type Japanese quail. They also tend to consume more feed than the wild type.
The Golden Italian has the Y (yellow) lethal gene. And you shouldn't pair two Golden Italians for breeding.
The lavender and the white (A&M) quail can be paired for breeding. You can work out what percent of each phenotype color and mixes can be expected via Punnets Square.

This is awesome information. I'm ok at genetics, I could be better. But I actually do have italian quail. I am looking to breed all my non-brown colored quail. So question for you - could I pair a Texas A&M with the Italian? I love the way the Italians look but how do they maintain their color if they can't be bred together? And then what do you think if I did say - one gray, one italian, two A&M's in the pen for breeding (I have one italian male and the rest are hens). Would the resulting quail be more mutt looking or would they just lighten out?

 

[CoturnixComplex]

Some clarification - the lavender gene is a recessive gene, as is the gene that's behind the Texas a&m color (recessive white), but your quail could very well be a silver/blue, not lavender, which is a partially dominant semi-lethal gene, so birds with one copy are silver but birds with two don't fare well.

I'm not really good at telling them apart from photos, so breeding it and seeing what happens is probably your best bet. If you get more greyish birds in your first gen, it is a silver/blue, not lavender/"Bleu".

 

[backyard pigeons]

How exciting! What are its parents? I dont know as much about it as others do, but i would def breed it to an a&m. @CoturnixComplex welcome to byc! You seem to be very knowledgeable in cots, how long have you had quail?

 

[CoturnixComplex]

How exciting! What are its parents? I dont know as much about it as others do, but i would def breed it to an a&m. @CoturnixComplex welcome to byc! You seem to be very knowledgeable in cots, how long have you had quail?

Thank you! Always fun to meet other people as nutty as I am. I haven't long at all actually, I'm just a genetics freak who fell down a really deep quail internet hole one night.