What color is my quail baby??

[kurby22]

I’m just curious what folks would call this baby? The feather pattern looks like a Rosetta that’s been diluted? Would the silver gene do this or is this the result of a different combo? It’s a beautiful light brown color!

Edited to add one other baby! Is this what Pansy looks like or is she a bit diluted too? She’s so beautiful!

 

[FloorCandy]

That first one looks like it is a roux range pattern, with fee. The pattern diversity is probably from wild pattern bleeding in, so like a Rosetta pattern, roux fee. The next bird looks like autumn amber, with silver, so roux, Italian and silver. I’m saying roux on these because there’s no black, but the silver also dilutes the black, so the second one is kind of a toss up of roux or no roux, as it ages you might get a better idea.

 

[kurby22]

That first one looks like it is a roux range pattern, with fee. The pattern diversity is probably from wild pattern bleeding in, so like a Rosetta pattern, roux fee. The next bird looks like autumn amber, with silver, so roux, Italian and silver. I’m saying roux on these because there’s no black, but the silver also dilutes the black, so the second one is kind of a toss up of roux or no roux, as it ages you might get a better idea.

Cool, thanks!! I wasn’t able to keep track of my eggs and the eggs I ordered so I’ve been trying to tease out which ones are mine haha. I have Pansy Fees and a Falb Fee hen and a silver male, so I’m trying to figure out if they’re Silvie babies or not! Probably won’t really know, oh well!

Does this one still look like a Pearl to you? And if so, is the dark head a ringer for a male?

 

[Nabiki]

Cool, thanks!! I wasn’t able to keep track of my eggs and the eggs I ordered so I’ve been trying to tease out which ones are mine haha. I have Pansy Fees and a Falb Fee hen and a silver male, so I’m trying to figure out if they’re Silvie babies or not! Probably won’t really know, oh well!

Does this one still look like a Pearl to you? And if so, is the dark head a ringer for a male?

That one looks like a pearl to me. It's still too early to tell on the head since the cheeks haven't feathered in yet.

 

[kurby22]

That one looks like a pearl to me. It's still too early to tell on the head since the cheeks haven't feathered in yet.

Okay cool! I figured the dark head was a sure thing for boy so that’s good to hear haha I’m sad because I think all three Italians are going to be boys…which is fine except all the other pretty colors I don’t have also look to be boys

 

[FloorCandy]

Cool, thanks!! I wasn’t able to keep track of my eggs and the eggs I ordered so I’ve been trying to tease out which ones are mine haha. I have Pansy Fees and a Falb Fee hen and a silver male, so I’m trying to figure out if they’re Silvie babies or not! Probably won’t really know, oh well!

Does this one still look like a Pearl to you? And if so, is the dark head a ringer for a male?

It looks pearl, but when I see the wings, they look dark gray, so the head can lighten as the feathers grow and fluff out. I have one that looks very much pearl, but produces silver chicks, so it’s just dark dark gray.

Looking at the head, and what I can see of the chest, I feel like it’s more likely to be male, but it’s still early and may be female. If I had to guess, I’d say I feel maybe 70% that it’s male. Also it looks like it has red around the neck that is fading, which seems to be, in my experience with pearl and Italian, a sign it carries roux, and females can’t have black and carry roux. I had no females that had red necks like that, red heads on rosettas, yes, but not red necks on fawn.

 

[kurby22]

It looks pearl, but when I see the wings, they look dark gray, so the head can lighten as the feathers grow and fluff out. I have one that looks very much pearl, but produces silver chicks, so it’s just dark dark gray.

Looking at the head, and what I can see of the chest, I feel like it’s more likely to be male, but it’s still early and may be female. If I had to guess, I’d say I feel maybe 70% that it’s male. Also it looks like it has red around the neck that is fading, which seems to be, in my experience with pearl and Italian, a sign it carries roux, and females can’t have black and carry roux. I had no females that had red necks like that, red heads on rosettas, yes, but not red necks on fawn.

I guess either way I could keep it and hope I got a silver hen! The silvers are annoying as they’ve all hatched out male :-( I have two silver celadon males, Silvie, and maybe three silvers in this recent hatch although I think one may be a German pastel and I know zero about the genetics of the pastels! The obvious silver baby looks like a silver diluted Falb Fee…it’s very pretty.

 

[FloorCandy]

I guess either way I could keep it and hope I got a silver hen! The silvers are annoying as they’ve all hatched out male :-( I have two silver celadon males, Silvie, and maybe three silvers in this recent hatch although I think one may be a German pastel and I know zero about the genetics of the pastels! The obvious silver baby looks like a silver diluted Falb Fee…it’s very pretty.

I have also found that silver travels more readily to males, and my suspicion is that roux is responsible. After several generations I have many silver hens, but I don’t have a clean snowie hen yet. I’m thinking genes that are incompletely dominant are less dominant in hens somehow. I get many manchurian males but never a hen so far, I know they exist, but I need to keep tossing fawn into silvers, since I’m not making them yet.

 

[kurby22]

I have also found that silver travels more readily to males, and my suspicion is that roux is responsible. After several generations I have many silver hens, but I don’t have a clean snowie hen yet. I’m thinking genes that are incompletely dominant are less dominant in hens somehow. I get many manchurian males but never a hen so far, I know they exist, but I need to keep tossing fawn into silvers, since I’m not making them yet.

How very annoying! The Italians seem to be good genes to keep around for fun colors too…I don’t have enough pens for all these dang quail I want to keep, haha. I do love the various colors…since I have you I might see what you guys think on if the silvers gender?? If it’s a Falb Fee silver…would I see speckles? Is the other a GP or a silver? I’ve still got so much to learn about colors! I included the third silver just cuz…it’s my runt and a tuxedo so I won’t know gender for forever.

 

[FloorCandy]

How very annoying! The Italians seem to be good genes to keep around for fun colors too…I don’t have enough pens for all these dang quail I want to keep, haha. I do love the various colors…since I have you I might see what you guys think on if the silvers gender?? If it’s a Falb Fee silver…would I see speckles? Is the other a GP or a silver? I’ve still got so much to learn about colors! I included the third silver just cuz…it’s my runt and a tuxedo so I won’t know gender for forever.

You would see speckles if he’s a full wild pattern. I think he’s male. The next bird definitely has roux, and it looks like silver also, and looks to be male.

Here’s the thing about GPC and SSC, it’s so difficult to know your flavor of gray. GPC is like a wide variety of traits. I’m pretty sure fee originated in GPC, but is often found in SSC groups. I think GPC brings other grays like Blau (blue), and lavender. Those colors interact with each other, roux, fee and anything else, to create things like la Creme, platinum etc.

Lavender is recessive, and seems to most often be wild patterned, which I guess is probably just the preference of the breeders. I don’t have lavender, but you can easily determine if you have lavender by breeding it to a non gray bird that you know doesn’t carry any gray at all, if you get any grays, it isn’t lavender because it needs a copy from each parent.

I was told by the breeder of some eggs I received this year, that blue or Blau have dark legs. I crossed the dark legged male I kept, with a group of hens, 2 of which were my Tibetan and scarlet celadon hens, so I could easily identify the eggs for my test. The 2 celadons have no SSC, proven thru many generations, I crossed them to the gray with dark legs and got many gray birds, so he’s definitely not lavender. None of my SSCs have dark legs, even solid silver range patterns with almost no pied. All of the gray offspring of the new gray male have dark legs, even the tuxes have dark areas on their legs and toes.

My next step will be to cross him to some SSC hens, and see if I get any double silvers, if I do, I’ll know he’s got SSC, but could have Blau and SSC. It’s a lengthy journey, but he’s made some lovely chicks. It’s like a hurricane here now, so I can’t take a pic, I’ll try to remember when it clears up, but I have 1 chick that is a cross of my blue boy and a sparkly hen who is dark black with small brown bands, very pretty. Well, their chick looks kind of like, imagine a pansy fee, but instead of white underneath, it’s Smokey gray. I’m hoping this holds up as it ages, it’s only about 3 weeks.