OK to mate Texas A&M & Japanese Coturnix?

[Woodlebrain]

What will you get & will you get fertile/surviving offspring from a regular brown and a Texas A&M? Silly question I'm sure since they are all Coturnix, & what will they look like? Our first hatch yielded one little brown chick. If it turns out to be a boy all is right with the world. If it's a girl things get complicated (it's stating to look like a girl). I have a new local source for eggs for regular browns but figured I'd mail order for some A&Ms, keep only a male A&M, have all brown girls so I will be sure no one is inbreeding. Will this work? We are in an apartment so no big operation just wanting some gals to lay for us to eat eggs & occasionally try hatching.

 

[James the Bald]

Well, the A&M "was" bred to create a larger bodied quail and breeding it with an "average" pharoah will result in an "average" sized offspring. That is, if you actually have a Texas A&M quail. Some breeders will hatch some white quail and will call it A&M. I know this because I was sold some that were advertised as A&M's but were much closer to the English White (8oz) from a nationally known breeder (whom I will not disclose). I ended up getting Texas A&Ms from James Marie Farms which produced nice sized birds; their "smallest" hen was 13 oz, but she layed large eggs so I don't use her as a breeder.
James

 

[Woodlebrain]

Thanx. I don't mind (& prefer) the smaller/average size bird (being in an appartment). We only care about eggs not meat. My biggest concern is inbreeding so my easiest option in my poor old brain is to make the male obvious (a white colour from an egg from a totally different source of the brown eggs since everyone is going into the incubator together). Just curious if the offspring would be browns/mixed colours?

 

[Fat Daddy]

What will you get & will you get fertile/surviving offspring from a regular brown and a Texas A&M? Silly question I'm sure since they are all Coturnix, & what will they look like? Our first hatch yielded one little brown chick. If it turns out to be a boy all is right with the world. If it's a girl things get complicated (it's stating to look like a girl). I have a new local source for eggs for regular browns but figured I'd mail order for some A&Ms, keep only a male A&M, have all brown girls so I will be sure no one is inbreeding. Will this work? We are in an apartment so no big operation just wanting some gals to lay for us to eat eggs & occasionally try hatching.

Hi, IMHO, you are worried too much about "inbreeding"..... I assure you there will be no issue breeding brother to sister for several generations. I would'nt do it with dogs or cattle, but with coturnix its just not a big deal. You will see the term "line-breeding" and it is a very common technique used to lock in traits that the breeder desires. It can also be used to cause hidden genes (colors) to pop up too. But keep only your best birds as in color and body type. No defects, no matter how cute or pitiful !

Back to your question. Yes, you can breed a Jumbo white to your standard brown coturnix. Yes the off spring will be fine and fertile. Like James said they wont be the size of the jumbo white... some will be larger than the standard brown thou. As to what will they look like. If the browns are true-pure, the chicks will be all brown. But you will have "splits", carring one white gene and one brown. If there are already some splits in your brown birds, you will see a percentage of white chicks.

 

[Woodlebrain]

thanks for all the awesome info! I figured we'd settle on 6 gals & 1 boy & the rest can go one craigslist. Being very urban I know there's a lot of people in my area wanting them. They too might be sent off at end of season if we can't winter them on our deck
& we'll start fresh in the spring with hatching eggs so long term blood lines & so on not too important to us. The kids loved watching our 1 egg hatch & we enjoyed the eggs last year.

 

[James the Bald]

Hi, IMHO, you are worried too much about "inbreeding"..... I assure you there will be no issue breeding brother to sister for several generations.

There is a thread about inbreeding quail.... unless your quail are inbred for 17 generations, you won't see any issues (decreased fertility). As for me, I wouldn't go more than 3 without adding in some new quail to add to the gene pool.
James