Setting up breeding colonies (pens I guess)

[CARS]

When I picked up my A&M quail all of the birds that were 3 months old were put in one transportation coop and under 3 months into another.

I have been marking all of the roosters I see/hear crowing so I am close to knowing what ratio I have overall.

I would like to have 3 hens and one roo in each cage.

1) What do I look for when choosing which hens and roos to keep for breeding?

2) Since I am breeding for meat with the eggs as a bonus, do I breed the largest hens with the largest roos??

3) What other consideration have I not thought of???

 

[monarc23]

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Temperment? I dunno

I look at color first (for now), and as they mature any aggressives are culled out,, breed the rest, I keep the best colors from that... then I will be selecting for bigger birds and incorporating teh colors.

 

[CARS]

Thanks for the reply Monarc!

Glad to hear I am not too far off in my thinking.

But a follow up for you. Color? All of mine are A&M's.... what color???

And,

How am I going to keep track of 70 bird's temperament??? Do they make different color leg bands for quail? How do you do this? One guy starts fighting with another and you process him???? Or do you rotate them all around until you get a group of 4 that likes eachother

(this is going to take time isn't it

)

 

[Appaloosa Hill Farm]

Colored zip ties, baby.

My A&Ms are sporting white zipties....Yeah, not such a good color choice in retrospect.

There's a guy near me who has 2500 coturnix with 3000 more in the bator and I'm dying to get out there and check out his pens. He told me he keeps them in colonies of 50-60.

Holy load of quail poo, Quailman!

 

[CARS]

I was doing some more reading on what others are doing and found this quote from G.Q.F. about raising Quail for meat to be interesting:

"MEAT BIRD PRODUCTION - Although Coturnix are mature after 6 weeks, they have not reached their full body weight until after 10 weeks. Temporary caponization of coturnix by light denial will create a much larger and fatter bird. Light denial decreases the sex urge and egg production. This most desirable light denial can be handled in one of two ways. The
birds may be placed in a completely darkened room and have a timer turn lights on for 8 hours each day or they may be raised in very low or dim lighting. In either case, do not let daylight or light rays shine directly into pens. To reverse this temporary caponization, just return the birds to normal lighting for 10 days."


This was taken from:
https://www.gqfmfg.com/pdf/RAISE GAME BIRDS PDF.pdf

 

[monarc23]

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Nawwwwwhhh (i say that....and daily I have something new to do with my flock....

).

 

[monarc23]

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Yeppers! I never read that before but that's simliar to what happened with my first flock unintentionally. They were mature when it was october so it was way too cold with too little light for them to even consider breeding... they started to molt for winter and didn't start mating and calling until almost april!

I can't say for sure if it makes the birds bigger and fatter but I can see how as they won't be using their energy to breed

 

[CARS]

Resurrecting this thread because I have more questions again

The "little guys" have a lot more color (spots) than the older flock did. Should I be very careful about which birds I hatch eggs from?
I'm thinking I should only breed the pure whites to keep they later generations pure white. Or doesn't it matter? Will I ever be able to breed out the spots??

Wow, sounds like ethnic cleansing

 

[Ironsun]

Hi,

I don't think colour is important if your going to eat them, but if you want birds with no colour patches, then select for this trait. You can breed colour in as well as colour out.As the spots are in the genes, you will get spoted chicks too, but the more you select for solid white the better are your chances.

Eggs taste the same no matter what colour your using, it's a matter of personal chose which colour you have.

Ironsun

 

[CARS]

Well, I guess I am thinking that since Texas A&M was selectively breed to be pure white meat birds and when I butchered last week found it not to be true, I thought it was dark-ish meat, that I should do something to clean up the genes.

Has anyone had a pure white meat quail???