Need help breeding meat quails

[birdmandan]

Alright peeps. I have my mixed flock started up. I'm jumping the gun a bit but in 6-8 weeks, i will need to breed them. I am considering keeping 15 of the heaviest hens for breeding, then purchasing 3 roos to avoid inbreeding. The supplier of the eggs that i just hatched got up to 250 grams for roos and 330-350 grams for hens at 8 weeks. My birds are already bred for meat but it doesn't hurt to aim heavier. I understand the texas A&M gene is recessive. If i were to breed such roos with the 15 hens, there is a reasonable chance the chicks will inherit the A&M gene since the mixed hen flock would most likely carry the white gene. Jumbos are hard to come by in my state. Buying jumbo or half jumbo roos is my plan B. I understand pharoah jumbos are dominate so breeding roos to my mixed flock would yield about 75% larger birds. A&M white genes are recessive so breeding those roos with my mixed flock would produce perhaps 25% larger birds. Any experts here who can elaborate on my theory or suggest a better strategy?

 

[feedman77]

Where did you get your birds?

most breeders have multiple pens so chance of inbreeding would be low. I think in the dog breeding world it's not in breeding but line breeding.

It done to try and express specific traits or suppress others.

I have a pen of rosettas (supposedly) but out of that pen I get 6 colors of babies. A few of them are solid white. So I believe the recessive gene will show up with the right 2nd generation crosses.

 

[birdmandan]

End of week 1. Chicks are fed a custom made 33% protein formula from Ridleys mill. A small and large chick are chosen to be the weight standard. Small at 26 grams, larger at 48 grams. Not bad for a week's growth!

As suggested by feedman77, i will breed from my own stock. I am planning to seperate 7 hens into pen A and 7 in pen B. I will breed the biggest roo to the females in pen A. Then breed the largest offspring from that production to the females in pen B and repeat in order to create 2 sustainable bloodlines. Overall, i will have 2 roos and 14 hens and can selectively pick the largest to continue breeding.

 

[Binki]

Wish I could find good feed around here... Good luck!!

 

[birdmandan]

Week 2. Biggest chick is 88 grams and surprising, a male. That's a 40 gram increment in 7 days. At this rate, the chick will be around 240 grams at 6 weeks and over 300 by slaughter time at 8 weeks.

 

[Binki]

Oh wow a male is the biggest one eh? Maybe he will become a monster

I just skimmed a study that tried different percentages of mealworms added to the feed to encourage broiler weight and it found 2% to be the most effective

From what I understand, raising mealworms is essentially free aside from the cheap bran? bedding and old vegetable scraps once a week or so for moisture - would need space to store them and time for them to breed as well and they get sifted clean every few months or so

 

[birdmandan]

I want to flag this little dude as the stud male for 7 hens but he is Italian and most of the hens are Italian too. A double dose of the dominant gold gene is lethal and results in a 25% fatality rate. Might have to sell the little dude or give him the chop.

 

[birdmandan]

Week 3... if anyone is still interested in this thread... same little guy is 144 grams or 5 oz! The biggest females are only around 125-135 grams. We have a monster indeed.

 

[HUGHES555]

I want to flag this little dude as the stud male for 7 hens but he is Italian and most of the hens are Italian too. A double dose of the dominant gold gene is lethal and results in a 25% fatality rate. Might have to sell the little dude or give him the chop.

I have 2 cages of Italian and have never heard that a double dose of the gold gene is lethal and never had a problem with losing a lot of chicks. I hatch 120 eggs a month of standard brown, jumbo, Tibetan, Italian and A&M. Dont have a problem with any of them having a 25% fatality rate. I may lose a hand full in each batch but thats to be expected when raising quail.

 

[birdmandan]

Hmmm... might keep the little dude in that case... his size and fast growth is an asset. I had 10 chicks who died in the shell out of 70. Was not sure why. A few cracked eggs too, evident because of the terrible smell. I just bought a batch of jumbo pharoah so he would be a good breeder for that batch. That gives me 2 completely unrelated bloodlines to play with.