Susan Skylark
Songster
I hatched 7 coturnix this morning, boy has it been weird! I’m culling an older hen but don’t want to lose the color (ginger?) so I put her in a pen and got a couple eggs, marked them and then put them into lockdown in a separate incubator. Meanwhile the other eggs were hatching and all coming out Tibetans but I also had one coming backwards, he zipped but didn’t hatch and after a couple hours I split the egg, out he popped, everything dry and right as rain, a little falb fee with an unabsorbed yolk sac/umbilical hernia (not a vent prolapse, umbilical cord was dry, goop inside egg was dry, fully zipped, chick is full term) Google had no answers. Treated him as best I could, I’ve dealt with this in mammals but the yolk sac was a novelty, time will tell if he makes it, perky as all the others 8 hours post hatch but won’t know for a day or three on prognosis. After dealing with him the two reserved eggs finally got around to hatching, both yellow chicks with what appear to be reddish hints on the back, look just like mom at hatch (ginger eb tuxedo?). The significant thing here was I wanted a male out of her (sex linked recessive, if it is ginger) so his daughters would be ginger too. There is no way she could pass on the color to her chicks unless bred to a carrier bird, I was planning for these chicks to be the carrier! Obviously you can’t guarantee color at this age or for several more weeks but I’d be tickled if I accidentally skipped a generation! But how if this is the only bird of that color in the flock with no known carriers? I have 3 new males of unknown parentage from within my own birds, the father could be one of her sons! It turns out I really didn’t need to separate these eggs as nothing else in the hatch looks anything like these two but at least I know for sure. Hilarious to think my little line breeding experiment to verify color worked a generation faster than I had hoped. I’ve had this hen for a year and have never hatched anything resembling her, I’ve had a ton of scarlet tuxedos (plus or minus fee) but they are all red/orange/brown even at hatch but she’s beige, this is also my first hatch from these young males. Always something interesting going on!
