Snowflake is trying to brood an egg

[FloorCandy]

My double silver, blind, inside male quail Snowflake has taken one of his hens’ eggs and is trying to brood it alone. He chases all the hens away from it, even tho I’m pretty sure they’re all just trying to tell him he’s doing it wrong.

He’s had varrying levels of success, sometimes he sits on it, sometimes he accidentally kicks it to the side as he tries to sit on it lol. He’s been at it since overnight last night at some time. It’s not easy being a blind single dad!

 

[Sammi_0411]

Aww thats absolutely adorable thanks for making my day my one male quail i have is texas am and he looks after his 6girls waits for them to eat drink first etc such sweethearts

 

[RoosterML]

Does he eat and drink on his own?
I had a blind quail chick once Notice how I said “had”

 

[Sammi_0411]

Oh and he loves a cuddle with his girls one on left giving me the eye lol xx

 

[FloorCandy]

Does he eat and drink on his own?
I had a blind quail chick once Notice how I said “had”

He sure does, and he mates and gets around fine. They live in a large plastic bin, 50 gal. He tap tap taps the sides to get around like the 3 blind mice in shrek lol.

I have a hen too, she had a ton of issues and I spent months giving her supplements and feeds to try to get her standing reliably, but now I have her on Hudson feed gamebird pellets and I weaned her off all supplements. Previously if she missed 2 doses of vitamin e she would be stumbling and shoveling her head around on the ground.

The 2 of them ( there were 3 but I had to cull the other male, I couldn’t have 2 perma indoor cages) came from shipped eggs I received and they have all the characteristics of double SSC carriers. They’re blind, small, the hen (Baldi) has tiny weak legs, and both carry most of their weight high up on the chest. They have dark red/purple eyes, and the other male Popeye, had a bulging eye. They all have a bit dryer and slightly wispy feathers, I tell people that if tuxes and Texas a&m feathers look like whole milk color, the double silvers resemble skim milk. Snowflake has never needed any help of extra measures and is incredibly healthy.

When I culled Popeye he was 100% white meat and had a very tiny heart. I’ve been trying to get some healthy ones from breeding Popeye to silver hens because I want to grow out some white meat for the freezer. But I’ve only had 2 double silvers produced so far, and they died early, it’s kind of a slow side project.

 

[RoosterML]

I heard something about the whites having issues

 

[FloorCandy]

I heard something about the whites having issues

Definitely, but from what I’ve read there’s different issues depending on the type of white. Ive heard the Texas a&m ones, when they tried to breed pure white with no spots, many of the pure whites had issues. The SSC gene is sort of like Merle in dogs, one copy is fine, but 2 copies of silver can give you a ton of problems, and there’s supposed to be a certain amount that just die as embryos as well. It’s hard piecing together the info, but from a bunch of places I was reading about common traits of double silvers, smaller, thinner feathers, smaller hearts etc.

The same line, even crossed to my unrelated non silver birds has produced 2 bright red eyed albinos so far, and both passed within days of hatch, despite seeming healthy and normal and hatching on their own. I haven’t given up though, just like snowflake is healthy, I hope to get more healthy ones so I can propagate some stronger ones for eating.

Here’s a size comparison pic of Snowflake and a standard sized hen:

 

[RoosterML]

whatever you’re crossing to produce the albinos I heard if you don’t know those birds true makeup it is very difficult to breed for them
Whole quail world is new to me so take what I say with a grain of salt.(like the smallest spec you could see)

 

[FloorCandy]

whatever you’re crossing to produce the albinos I heard if you don’t know those birds true makeup it is very difficult to breed for them
Whole quail world is new to me so take what I say with a grain of salt.(like the smallest spec you could see)

I don’t have a lot of hope for survival of any of the true albinos, but I am hopeful for more healthy double silvers over time.