Strange Tennessee Red Quail Hatch

SeasideDuckMan

In the Brooder
7 Years
Aug 3, 2012
50
9
43
Jersey Shore
Hi All-

My neighbor and i enjoy hatching quail. Every summer we usually get a different kind, breed them, hatch them, sell them, and by that time it is fall, and we only keep a few of the babies.

Well, early this spring he came home with 1 male and 3 female Tennessee Red Quail. They laid about 40 eggs over about 3 months but we ended up with 10 babies because one got sick and then made the other ones sick and that was that. Out of those 10, 1 quail was a lighter color than the others. Coincidently, they stopped laying eggs at about the same time because it got very, very hot for awhile. A month or so ago, the heat subsided, and they started laying like crazy again. I put 20 eggs in the incubator...4 were infertile, a few died in the shell, long story short out the 20, 11 hatched. But these quail babies are very, very odd.

2 quail look like regular Northern Bobwhites
3 quail are a blonde, cardboard color
1 quail has white toes
and the remaining 5 are normal looking just like the parent birds.

My neighbor and i, personally, enjoy strange looking birds, for example, we LOVE the Blonde ones, i love the white toed one, etc... so i don't really care if they aren't PERFECT, "show birds", but i am just very curious as to why they look the way they do. Here are pictures of each variety that hatched yesterday. let me know that you think! ~Alex


"Blonde"

"Normal"

"White Toes"

"Regular Northern Bobwhite"
 
Tennessee reds are a mutation i believe, It is possible that somewhere down the line they were crossed to northerns or just retained the recessive genes. I have a group of jumbo coturnix that are brown, but one hen and the rooster both have a recessive white so the chicks from that hen come out looking like an A&M.
 
I wold love to see updated pictures. I have heard of quail doing this and I agree with the mutation comment. :)
 

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