Quail Genes & Help With Genetic Ids

[Pipsnchicks]

Hey guys! I've been working with some of the top breeders, geneticists, and poultry professors across the world the last few years and finally put together the most complete list of quail genes. It has every single known mutation currently studied in quail, both public genes (like Fawn, pharaoh, Blau, etc) and genes exclusively researched in the lab (like Black at Hatch, Ear Tufts, etc), and have even managed to find pictures for most of them, which is pretty cool! I'm working on getting an article published in Oxford Academic about it.

https://ourpipsnchicks.wixsite.com/poultry

If anyone has Coturnix quail they'd like help ID'ing, let's see them below and I will take my best guess. If I don't know it, I can forward it to someone who certainly does!

If any of you have pictures that would make good references of colors like Cinnamon or otherwise, please reach out! I can always use more pictures, chicks expecially. (One of my favorite photos of Paris, my Italian hen is attached).

 

[Susan Skylark]

Finally! I have referenced your website before and really appreciate your work, especially as nobody seems to know anything about quail color genetics, very excited to check it out.

I have 2 birds (day old pics available as well) I’d love to confirm, going off similar pics off thieving otter farms website:

Fawn Blau tuxedo? Solid yellow chick with a slight reddish tinge to dorsal down (female by the way, roux and fee present in these shipped eggs of unknown parentage).

Blau EB? Another hen, same hatch. Chick looked like a heavily barred Italian with charcoal stripes and almost mascara eyeliner.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Just got done looking over your site, any chance you'll ever have a multi genetic phenotype compilation? I know it could be thousands of variations! But you did answer my roux question I posted elsewhere (can a female sex linked recessive in birds ever throw females with the trait, I worked it out (backwards to mammals!) and figured they couldn't but it is nice to confirm, thanks!). I also have a white question. My first hatch consisted of 5 birds, again shipped eggs of unknown parentage. 2 pharaoh, 2 white ventrally with pharaoh dorsally, and one mostly pharoah with a white patch on the chest. We kept the one female of the bunch (my son's favorite bird!), one of the mostly white birds, and I don't know what to classify her as: pied wing white or dotted white? We have a couple chicks, one an exact copy of the mother except an EB and and the other an EB with a few white patches (father is EB, with a couple small white patches on the throat/breast but probably doesn't carry a white gene as his other chicks aren't showing white patches). If she was tuxedo (heterozygous dotted white) I'd assume she'd throw either tuxedo or non white birds, but this spotted chick seems to dismiss that theory. If she's pied wing white, can she throw varying amounts of color? I've tried to read up on the subject and posted a query here somewhere but nobody has an answer. Any ideas? Pictures to follow:

The hen in question.

Sorry, phone pic, but the hen and her brothers.

EB chick out of this hen. Also a falb fee (the rump) and a rosetta (the head with the white chin above the falb fee rump) both from the same sire (the out of focus pearl is another sire entirely) but no white on either of them (save the chin on the EB). The newest chick is 8 days old and feathering out as an EB with a few white patches on the breast and wing tips. I guess my question is does dotted white always throw tuxedos (heterozygous), plain (no gene), or white birds (homozygous)? Does white winged pied throw varying patterns of white from the same bird (ranging from mostly white to a few patches)? Thanks!

 

[Pipsnchicks]

Finally! I have referenced your website before and really appreciate your work, especially as nobody seems to know anything about quail color genetics, very excited to check it out.

I have 2 birds (day old pics available as well) I’d love to confirm, going off similar pics off thieving otter farms website:
View attachment 3940095
Fawn Blau tuxedo? Solid yellow chick with a slight reddish tinge to dorsal down (female by the way, roux and fee present in these shipped eggs of unknown parentage).
View attachment 3940099
View attachment 3940097
Blau EB? Another hen, same hatch. Chick looked like a heavily barred Italian with charcoal stripes and almost mascara eyeliner.
View attachment 3940098

So, the first looks like it's actually a pharaoh base, it definitely has the tuxedo (het. dotted white). The reason it's hard to tell is because it actually has Roux on top! That's what's causing the light red color, not necessarily the Fawn + Blau. The lightness instead of the typical deep red could be from some of the greys (Blau or Silver likely here), but if you said it can from a group with Fee, that would be the best bet! My final answer (and test breeding would help confirm) would be Pharaoh Roux Fee with het. Dotted White (Or Egyptian Fee Tuxedo).

 

[Pipsnchicks]

Finally! I have referenced your website before and really appreciate your work, especially as nobody seems to know anything about quail color genetics, very excited to check it out.

I have 2 birds (day old pics available as well) I’d love to confirm, going off similar pics off thieving otter farms website:
View attachment 3940095
Fawn Blau tuxedo? Solid yellow chick with a slight reddish tinge to dorsal down (female by the way, roux and fee present in these shipped eggs of unknown parentage).
View attachment 3940099
View attachment 3940097
Blau EB? Another hen, same hatch. Chick looked like a heavily barred Italian with charcoal stripes and almost mascara eyeliner.
View attachment 3940098

The second one looks spot on!Blau EB would be my guess, with a Rosetta base (so if you cross, you'll likely get pharaoh as well).

 

[Pipsnchicks]

Finally! I have referenced your website before and really appreciate your work, especially as nobody seems to know anything about quail color genetics, very excited to check it out.

I have 2 birds (day old pics available as well) I’d love to confirm, going off similar pics off thieving otter farms website:
View attachment 3940095
Fawn Blau tuxedo? Solid yellow chick with a slight reddish tinge to dorsal down (female by the way, roux and fee present in these shipped eggs of unknown parentage).
View attachment 3940099
View attachment 3940097
Blau EB? Another hen, same hatch. Chick looked like a heavily barred Italian with charcoal stripes and almost mascara eyeliner.
View attachment 3940098

I'm glad you find the website helpful!! It's so much fun to work on and I've learned so much while putting it together.

 

[Pipsnchicks]

Just got done looking over your site, any chance you'll ever have a multi genetic phenotype compilation? I know it could be thousands of variations! But you did answer my roux question I posted elsewhere (can a female sex linked recessive in birds ever throw females with the trait, I worked it out (backwards to mammals!) and figured they couldn't but it is nice to confirm, thanks!). I also have a white question. My first hatch consisted of 5 birds, again shipped eggs of unknown parentage. 2 pharaoh, 2 white ventrally with pharaoh dorsally, and one mostly pharoah with a white patch on the chest. We kept the one female of the bunch (my son's favorite bird!), one of the mostly white birds, and I don't know what to classify her as: pied wing white or dotted white? We have a couple chicks, one an exact copy of the mother except an EB and and the other an EB with a few white patches (father is EB, with a couple small white patches on the throat/breast but probably doesn't carry a white gene as his other chicks aren't showing white patches). If she was tuxedo (heterozygous dotted white) I'd assume she'd throw either tuxedo or non white birds, but this spotted chick seems to dismiss that theory. If she's pied wing white, can she throw varying amounts of color? I've tried to read up on the subject and posted a query here somewhere but nobody has an answer. Any ideas? Pictures to follow:View attachment 3940139
The hen in question.


View attachment 3940140
Sorry, phone pic, but the hen and her brothers.

View attachment 3940143
EB chick out of this hen. Also a falb fee (the rump) and a rosetta (the head with the white chin above the falb fee rump) both from the same sire (the out of focus pearl is another sire entirely) but no white on either of them (save the chin on the EB). The newest chick is 8 days old and feathering out as an EB with a few white patches on the breast and wing tips. I guess my question is does dotted white always throw tuxedos (heterozygous), plain (no gene), or white birds (homozygous)? Does white winged pied throw varying patterns of white from the same bird (ranging from mostly white to a few patches)? Thanks!

So! The Dotted White and other white patterns are where things get really fun. Basically, they all can be bred to look like each other. When you don't select for markings, you can really get a lot of variation, but it'll start to naturally follow a pattern.

Dotted white will naturally go to the neck, chin, and breast being white, with the homozygous being all white with only a dot on the back of the head. You can breed that white dot in homozygous form to be much bigger or to not exist at all. You can also breed the white in tuxedos to be most of the face and breast, or as little as a few spots. I would lean towards this being dotted white with an extreme amount of white.

WWP will just have the tips of the wings in heterozygous form, and the whole breast and wings of the bird in homozygous (like the look above). Y

Splash is completely recessive but will also look very similar to homo. WWP. I doubt it's splash at all.

 

[Susan Skylark]

This is why we need a quail color website where we can just type in genetic variations and the AI will pop out the resulting phenotype, there has been grant money for less useful things! On the beige (apricot?) bird, how do you tell the underlying pattern (pharoah or Italian)? I can see the EB in the gray bird but my Egyptian from this hatch doesn’t look anything like this one, actually looking at the barring on the apricot bird it almost looks EB? I have some chicks out of that pen (10 days old) with a pearl male and they are all coming in pearl or Italian (was hoping for some Blau!). I wondered about roux with that reddish top line and can’t find what roux does to Blau anywhere (purple!). What does fee do to Blau too? And then you combine them, my brain hurts! Thanks for your input, I’ll post a better shot of the bird in question plus my roux pharoah (no tux on this one!) for comparison.

I have some 10 day old pictures of these birds, have a gander and let me know what you think!

Adult plumage picture, slight barring on beige feathers.

Awkward teenager pic: barring on apricot fairly obvious.

Scarlet (EB roux) bird from same hatch. This is my new wild theory: is the beige bird a roux EB plus possible fee and or Blau to fade out the color?

This is the gray bird for comparison, again you get that barring.

This is the Egyptian from that hatch (pharoah roux plus possible fee). I’m trying to see the base pattern under all the dilution genes (haven’t even tried pansy etc yet!), any hints? Thanks again!

 

[Susan Skylark]

Thanks for the white info! I was leaning pww but every place I read up on it said something different!

 

[Pipsnchicks]

This is why we need a quail color website where we can just type in genetic variations and the AI will pop out the resulting phenotype, there has been grant money for less useful things!

There may or may not be a project in the works...