Setting up breeding colonies (pens I guess)

[HobokenChickenEmergency]

I read that if you breed a pure white to a pure white, you get 25% pure whites in their offspring. Makes total sense if you're into genetics at all. In theory, breeding the pure white offspring together should produce all pure whites, but I don't know if anyone's tested that theory yet.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I haven't seen many pure white A&M, most of them have some color on them somewhere. They were bred to have white breast meat, I don't think it was their whole bodies that were meant to be white. I could be wrong about that, but this is my take on it.

If you want to have birds with as little color as possible, I would keep only those that are pure white, or those with the smallest spots on their heads, as this is acceptable for A&Ms. Body spots shouldn't be evident, though most of mine do have them.

I haven't processed any of mine, so I can't say about the 'all white meat'.

 

[CARS]

Quote:
Well, that is the problem. I didn't think that what I processed last week was white meat. It's a little hard to breed the white meat ones after you process them

What exactly is the standard for A&M's? From what i hear, the university gave the study up. And Cindy from Jumbo Quail (don't remember the correct name) quit breeding to take care of the kids. From what I read she (and I am sure Frank helped) further developed the larger meat strains.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I meant the birds that have all white feathers obviously

From what I understand, A&Ms are supposed to have all white breast meat, be pure white or white with a brown spot on their heads in color, and be about 1 pound live weight. Not only is it hard to find some that are all white (feathers), but I have not had any that were even close to one pound. There are just too many people breeding birds just to make more birds, without any consideration as to the type. It seems that anyone that hatches out a white quail calls it an A&M, when the type that would probably be closer to most would be the English, also pure white, but only about the size of a normal brown (pharaoh) quail.

 

[CARS]

So what can we do to keep the strain pure??? Is it too late?????????

Where would someone try to gain knowledge???? I am too old to go back to college. Especially all the way across the country

 

[shelleyd2008]

I would say like Niki said, just breed the biggest, whitest birds together, to try and get them larger. Most birds that are white feathered are also white meat, so that should come in-hand with it. I don't know how to get them bigger myself, all mine are about the same size. I don't know if breeding them to jumbo browns would work, I'd be afraid that this would cause the white meat factor to disappear. Wolf-Kim has only A&M, I wonder what size hers are?

 

[CARS]

Thanks for the reply Shelly. I am actually disappointed in the size of the birds so I am looking to gain some answers to why my A&M's are not white through out. Well... I know inside the ribcage...