Quail Biology

[Quailgenes]

Bare with me I've become obsessed with quail and reading just about everything I can find on them for 3 days. I want to set up a little lab and genetically test quail for genes that may trigger broodiness. I've thought of all kinds of ideas and just to eliminate some of them. I have lots of questions. I don't think the gene is gone it just breeders aren't making concentrated effort, genetic testing is hard and I have a bad feeling genes are very severely homogenize again it so finding birds with even heterogeneous genes I can work with will be tough.

1. I keep running into old documents that said there are wild populations of Japanese Quail in Hawaii. Are these populations breeding or are they introduced just for hunting? If they are wild populations can they be caught? I can't find any info on this at all.

2. Does anyone have a good source that could explain the light cycle, weather, temp that wild Japanese Quail live in? I think
simulating the environment will be a good addition. I figured out they like being outside, sunlight, cover, and foraging. Please add anything else.

Another idea I'm thinking about is how hard it would be to do artificial insemination and if that is easier than live bird or egg shipment.

I will think of other stuff later.

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello there and welcome to BYC!

Wow, this sounds like an interesting project! One thing I can tell you about Japanese Quail and why they have lost their broodiness is that for centuries they have been kept and bred for meat and eggs. They have been kept in pens and cages for eons now and have never been allowed to go broody. Hence, they have evolved not to need broodiness. I can also tell you that in the wild they mate with one bird for life and do not tolerate other pairs in their territory. Creatures evolve to survive and the Coturnix sure has changed a lot over these centuries.

Just as any other wild ground bird, they enjoy large spaces, foraging areas, brush for cover, flight and a quiet natural environment.

Good luck with your project!

 

[Quailgenes]

I forgot the most obvious question do people sell eggs from those very rare broody females? I saw a few post about them. It would be the cheapest(not made of money/would take years to start) way to go about it(maybe knowing me) full old school the way scientist have been doing it for centuries. If I concentrate the individuals that could be all I need. Would always be guessing about what I would be getting and should be mixing. Has anyone done some line breeding? Son back to broody mother etc?

 

[TwoCrows]

You can get away with several generations of breeding related birds with no issues. Depends on how much breeding you do. But it is best to add new blood once a year if you are doing heavy breeding.

Since you are dealing with so few broody birds, if you can find these birds at all, this will be a difficult task to separate this particular trait out because you also have cull other not so ideal qualities out of these few birds that are broody. Your best broody could have other genetic issues and behavior traits that need to be removed too or not fit to use as a breeder. (she may have genetic traits that you do not want passed on to offspring such as health issues, etc..). Unfortunately other undesirable traits are much more prevalent than broodiness. If you were trying to remove aggression in your flock or increase the size of birds, these are easier to attain since you have so many birds to work with. But broody birds are not all that common.

If you had many many birds and blood lines of broody birds to work with, this might work. But in your life time, this may be a difficult task to make work.

BUT....all this being said, this still might be a fun project to try.

I am not sure where you can locate broody birds however.