Tatanka Breeders Club: Meat Quail project with history, discussion, pictures and videos

[MobyQuail]

awesome yinepu, we need data, other lines may mature at different rates or kick it in a little later, I have heard some let them grow to 10 weeks or more.

I talked to Mille and FatDaddy on the phone this weekend and I told em the crowing just drives me to do the deed and save the feed at 6 weeks, that's it.

I am hoping we get you a good start and I am going to send you 2 batches (will pm ya) and hopefully Mille can get ya one around same time.

Have had multiple interests from worthy parties in Texas and would be easier to get them started this early summer or fall, (avoiding the heat of dead summer), if we get 2 divisions loaded up in the lone star state.

btw, I laughed my butt off talking to those two guys. MilleB told me the funniest story about a guy that drove an hour last week to call him a liar about his craigslist ad of 13-15 oz "jumbo brown" birds- so, Jim let him pick any bird out of his breeder pens to put on the scale... the guy obviously chose what he thought was the smallest bird... put it on the scale...13.7 oz. !

Lucky to have met them and others from this little bird and the web.

 

[mochicken]

The ones I got from Mille are growing like weeds, I am going to weigh them again in 5 days and I will let you know, they are already double the weight of chicks hatched from standard eggs on the same day..................AWESOME

 

[MobyQuail]

The ones I got from Mille are growing like weeds, I am going to weigh them again in 5 days and I will let you know, they are already double the weight of chicks hatched from standard eggs on the same day..................AWESOME

awesome Mo, thanks for quaillaborating.

We need numbers and a Missouri River Division looks like it can stretch from the Southeast to the Rocky Mountains.



real good stuff!

holler back.

 

[MobyQuail]

ok, I was staring at Fatdaddys F4 tatankas in my middle pen brooder, they are at eye height, I can sit there and compare them against each other.

They are version 12.25.2011 the last brood of 2011. I have several hens that made 280 by 42 days. They are 2+ weeks into laying their first few eggs, 11, 12, 13, some just 14 grams so far.

I like 2-3 of the hens and reached in and grabbed one, 330 grams @ 62 days. not a "fatdaddy" by definition, but if she lays a nice egg, we are still in business. We can take the f2 brown cockbird and cross to f4 hen or split cockbird to f2 and f4 hens, we have some options.

I grew up in a one stop-light town so help me out, I think we have similar sized, related (inbred? line-bred? whatever) birds, with similar traits over multiple generations across several states.

 

[jbobs]

Hey Moby, I love what I see! I wanted to embark on a project like this once I was settled in my own place (hopefully by fall) but I was just going to start with a line of normal brown birds and breed the biggest trio out of each generation to see how many generations it took to get, say, 50% of the birds over 350g. I'm not planning on going into big business or anything, just a hobby-scale. I'm not much of geneticist but I get the basics. From your experience, does the egg size also increase with the size of the birds? And does selecting eggs of a certain size result in a greater number of larger birds?

 

[MobyQuail]

Hey Moby, I love what I see! I wanted to embark on a project like this once I was settled in my own place (hopefully by fall) but I was just going to start with a line of normal brown birds and breed the biggest trio out of each generation to see how many generations it took to get, say, 50% of the birds over 350g. I'm not planning on going into big business or anything, just a hobby-scale. I'm not much of geneticist but I get the basics. From your experience, does the egg size also increase with the size of the birds? And does selecting eggs of a certain size result in a greater number of larger birds?

Hi jbobs, welcome, I like your blog, great video and very interesting stuff with the quail learning.

I have been hatching only 14+ gram eggs since last summer. I am doing it for 2 reasons.

#1 It makes sure I am selecting the best "egg" laying hens to hopefully pass on their genes of laying nice shaped, 14+ gram eggs
#2 and then we work under the premise, genes being equail and if each day they grow a % of their bodyweight, a bigger chick at day 1 is a bigger bird at day 7, a bigger bird at day 7 is usually a bigger bird at day 42.

all, in my humble opinion.

would like to see you start a little teaser thread into your quailblog, I know my friend Tonya will be interested in it.

again, welcome, make yourself at home.

TD

 

[jbobs]

Thanks, I'll start a thread on it One day when I'm done uni and have a place I want to get heavy into the quail again.

 

[MobyQuail]

Ok, raining here again today.

More video...

These are our 4 settings of test crosses and backcrosses. v2.7 to v.2.21

Just locked down last set of 5 eggs from the splits. they should be version 2.29? nice...

 

[MobyQuail]

Working on a Quaillaborative google spreadsheet to share data.

Looks like we have almost a dozen "Quail Farmers" across the USA signed up or working the project, hatching, weighing, culling.

Thanks everyone!

 

[MobyQuail]

just cleaning out the big brooder and I was wondering...

I grabbed one of the whites from v2.7, they are 21 days old today. put on scale... 163 grams

looks promising

days old weight (g)
42 280
41
40
39 260
38
37
36
35 240
34
33
32 220
31
30
29
28 200
27
26
25 180
24
23
22
21 160
20
19
18 120
17
16
15
14 80