Science Spiel: Broody Quail Hens and Selecting for Motherhood

[le_bwah]

I'm running a little "eggsperiment," letting eggs build up to see where the hens prefer to lay. Three other hens have gone broody in the meanwhile since my girl Janey started sitting, and I've had to break all 3 (not enough partitions for that many protective mamas). But I noticed that the hens who tend to brood are also the most likely to lay in sensible spots—next to grass, in a hut, under a log alcove. The hens who lay in different spots every day—or even out in the open—don't seem to show interest in nests in the least.

Janey, my current prospective mama, is the first committed broody I've seen (1 out of 15 observed, 1 out of 6 who I gave viable eggs to) that didn't line her nest with grass or straw. She laid a "secret" clutch of only her own eggs (she's also a celadon layer and literally kicked out every non-blue egg—birdy bigotry! ) behind a hanging shade sheet and was AWOL until I noticed the broody poops lying around. I've noticed that nesting, separate from laying tendencies, also exists on a spectrum—from well-made and insulated nests to bare substrate.

Here's the most nest-like nest I've seen so far:


Here's the under-basket clutch the other girls are collaborating on right now, note the grass they've begun lining it with:


And here's Janey's nest on Day 0—no adornment, insulation, or padding, just a depression in the bark. She'd already been sitting "empties" on it for about a week:


Takeaway: This all leads me to think that A) broodiness involves multiple (likely heritable) tendencies related to nest-building and egg-laying behavior, and if so B) we might be able to select for broody tendencies and breed them into a line of quail by observing hens' laying/nesting fitness. The girls who lay "safer" clutches in more carefully-tended nests could also be the ones with the biological gumption to brood and mother chicks.

My problem is I keep no males—no way to test this out, at least for this year's season. But I encourage you (those whose setups and purposes allow) to let your eggs go uncollected—with a handful of hens, it would only take a week to amass a clutch or two and observe nesting behavior (if present). Everybody seems to think broodiness was bred out of Coturnix—why couldn't we breed it back in?

That's all. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Maternal instincts, egg production, feet and leg health, calving ease, double muscling, fainting (myotonia), no horns...you can breed for or against all sorts of things, just remember that when selecting for X you are selecting against Y. Broodiness and Egg Production are polar opposites (hens quit laying when they sitting on eggs), broodiness was bred out of quail (and commercial laying hens) to enhance egg production, you can certainly do the reverse and try breeding it back in, though it might take a few generations assuming you actually get some boys in there! I do love a good breeding project, perhaps my favorite part of having quail!

 

[Susan Skylark]

Also watch out for 'dump nests,' wild Redhead ducks have their own nests and another local communal nest where a bunch of hens can leave 50+ eggs that nobody ever sits on! Looks like some of your nests are getting a little out of control with egg numbers as well!

 

[le_bwah]

Maternal instincts, egg production, feet and leg health, calving ease, double muscling, fainting (myotonia), no horns...you can breed for or against all sorts of things, just remember that when selecting for X you are selecting against Y. Broodiness and Egg Production are polar opposites (hens quit laying when they sitting on eggs), broodiness was bred out of quail (and commercial laying hens) to enhance egg production, you can certainly do the reverse and try breeding it back in, though it might take a few generations assuming you actually get some boys in there! I do love a good breeding project, perhaps my favorite part of having quail!

About half of all the female Coturnix I've ever kept have sat a nest (before I took their eggs away), and that's only when I've let them build a clutch in the first place. But every hatch has been from a different breeder, so it can't be all down to genetics.

I'm inclined to think environmental factors have a lot to do with broodiness—maybe as much as or even more than the human influence on their genetics. I'm only a hobbyist with no way to control for that many variables, but I'd love the space and time to get really scientific with it.

Also watch out for 'dump nests,' wild Redhead ducks have their own nests and another local communal nest where a bunch of hens can leave 50+ eggs that nobody ever sits on! Looks like some of your nests are getting a little out of control with egg numbers as well!

I'd never heard of that! I wonder if quail do something similar—given enough time, I've seen hens lay 30-40 eggs in one spot and they still tried to sit it.

Aside: it sounds wasteful now, but one summer I let an at-the-time tiny flock lay for about a month straight, just to see if they had any preferences and see if I could trigger brooding. Some hens would scuttle incomplete nests and kick out all the eggs just so they could lay their own in that spot. Two hens went broody on a small clutch together days before my "experiment" ended. I don't keep males, so I learned something but all those eggs had to be pitched.

One nest under a basket was double-layered by the time I came to collect—and when I stuck my hand in, I found the absolute fattest, fluffiest would-be mama perched on top like a cherry on a sundae.

 

[GA DUCK]

I'm running a little "eggsperiment," letting eggs build up to see where the hens prefer to lay. Three other hens have gone broody in the meanwhile since my girl Janey started sitting, and I've had to break all 3 (not enough partitions for that many protective mamas). But I noticed that the hens who tend to brood are also the most likely to lay in sensible spots—next to grass, in a hut, under a log alcove. The hens who lay in different spots every day—or even out in the open—don't seem to show interest in nests in the least.

Janey, my current prospective mama, is the first committed broody I've seen (1 out of 15 observed, 1 out of 6 who I gave viable eggs to) that didn't line her nest with grass or straw. She laid a "secret" clutch of only her own eggs (she's also a celadon layer and literally kicked out every non-blue egg—birdy bigotry! ) behind a hanging shade sheet and was AWOL until I noticed the broody poops lying around. I've noticed that nesting, separate from laying tendencies, also exists on a spectrum—from well-made and insulated nests to bare substrate.

Here's the most nest-like nest I've seen so far:
View attachment 4197019

Here's the under-basket clutch the other girls are collaborating on right now, note the grass they've begun lining it with:
View attachment 4197020

And here's Janey's nest on Day 0—no adornment, insulation, or padding, just a depression in the bark. She'd already been sitting "empties" on it for about a week:
View attachment 4197021

Takeaway: This all leads me to think that A) broodiness involves multiple (likely heritable) tendencies related to nest-building and egg-laying behavior, and if so B) we might be able to select for broody tendencies and breed them into a line of quail by observing hens' laying/nesting fitness. The girls who lay "safer" clutches in more carefully-tended nests could also be the ones with the biological gumption to brood and mother chicks.

My problem is I keep no males—no way to test this out, at least for this year's season. But I encourage you (those whose setups and purposes allow) to let your eggs go uncollected—with a handful of hens, it would only take a week to amass a clutch or two and observe nesting behavior (if present). Everybody seems to think broodiness was bred out of Coturnix—why couldn't we breed it back in?

That's all. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

"Breeding it back in" makes sense to me!

 

[Finchbreeder]

I keep and breed King Quail.
Lots of people say you can't keep them in family groups.
But I have been selecting for gentle natured birds for over 30yrs.
So my little quartet do not know that they cant be kept in family groups and live that way just fine.
Have successfully had trios off and on too.

 

[Quispherer]

How cool! I love the idea of figuring out how to incite healthy broody behavior. I'm already giving the girls grass they've been using to make nests since a few days before they started laying, but Im trying to figure out other things that help them feel safe enough to brood. I've read they stay off them way more at the beginning than chickens do? Then once they have a clutch they'll fully sit and brood. Have you found that to be true?

Also curious if "wild" types are more prone to broodiness, so far most of the broody hens I've seen pics and videos of are wild or italian. I may be biased toward it because the only 2 laying hens I have are wild(+roux) and Italian

 

[le_bwah]

How cool! I love the idea of figuring out how to incite healthy broody behavior. I'm already giving the girls grass they've been using to make nests since a few days before they started laying, but Im trying to figure out other things that help them feel safe enough to brood. I've read they stay off them way more at the beginning than chickens do? Then once they have a clutch they'll fully sit and brood. Have you found that to be true?

Also curious if "wild" types are more prone to broodiness, so far most of the broody hens I've seen pics and videos of are wild or italian. I may be biased toward it because the only 2 laying hens I have are wild(+roux) and Italian

I haven't noticed feather color making a difference—I've had just about every common color mutation make and sit a clutch. But I've only seen maybe 20 hens go broody total (and I've had to break most of them. They lay infertile eggs, plus I can't afford to buy hatching eggs for each of them, not in money or space), so it's hard to see a pattern in my setup.

Every hatch, the hen has been off her nest pretty much half the time I went to check. I still get nervous and go touch the nest, but the eggs are always body-hot or at least quite warm. Most of a hen's time off the nest seems to be spent dust bathing—they eat and drink a ton at once, make a single huge poop once in a while, and then spend maybe 10 minutes straight bathing. Then right back to the nest for a hour or so at a time.

I don't know how often chickens take breaks, so I can't compare. But I do know that it's different at night—most of my Coturnix hens sat right on through until morning, fluffed and defensive.