White egg-laying quail

[Tokyoranchu]

Dear all.

Just joined BYC but been watching the site for a while now.

I can't keep chickens where I live but do keep coturnix quail. I have recently aquired a strain of coturnix that lays white shelled eggs. I am keen to transfer this trait into my giant coturnix. My question, is this possible? If so, any guidance on how to go about it?

Any and all advice gratefully received.

Many thanks

Matt

 

[crazy for quail]

I just bought Bobwhite quail and the supplier told me that the easy way to tell if you are getting Bobwhites is that they have white shells. Coturnix quail lay spotted eggs. Both birds look similar and many people pass off the brown Coturnix as Bobwhite. Hope this helps.

 

[Tokyoranchu]

Many thanks for the reply. These are actually a white egg-laying Coturnix. I would have liked some bob-whites, but they aren't available where I am (Tokyo).

 

[dynodon]

I have had a few Cortunix quail lay an occasional off - white egg . These eggs seem to be a little thin shelled , and I have never had one hatch . It could be because of their feed ??

 

[Zrcalo]

Could they be hybrids? Could you show us a picture of your birds?

 

[Tokyoranchu]

Here are some pics of the hen and also the eggs (not my pic, the eggs are bottom left)

 

[Zrcalo]

Well they DO look like coturnix quail. But they may be hybridized anyway. Either way you've got some very special birds!

are they friendly or rather flighty?

 

[Tokyoranchu]

Not friendly at all. They don't like contact and are quite flighty.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Those sound like quail


To transfer the white egg gene, cross the 2 and only hatch the ones laying white. Try to keep true to the giant courtnix (Ie keep them big) but the white egg layers should be bred initially
Best advice I can give

 

[NikkiNik]

I know this original post is from 2013 but I found it just now as I found a white from my Coturnix hen today and wanted to find out what the reason could be.

The below post is quite interesting, so, hope this helps any white ‘egg finder’ who lands on this post.

I wanted to believe I had a very special hen and thought about incubating it, but after careful inspecting I saw a tiny dent in the shell and took my finger nail to slightly press on the dent to see how easily it would give way. It did in fact give way very quickly, notability fragile. To further investigate I held borne the white egg and normal speckled egg in my hand and repeated my nail test - it was quickly clear that the white shell seemed to missing that dense shell lacquer that the regular eggs have.

Earlier in the day I had given the hen a new food dish. Seems too insignificant to produce that much stress but this did happen one other time when one simple environmental factor was changed. As the experienced quailers here say - they are quite skittish and easily prone to stress. I am seeing this for myself as well!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/white-egg.1250154/#post-20056906