Yay button eggs

[Akane]

Look what I found today

If they are different colors and shades does that mean they are all from different birds?

 

[shelleyd2008]

I don't know for sure but that's the way I figure it! Congrats!! (send 'em to me

)

 

[Akane]

Since these are first eggs I'm thinking of trying to steam them for hard boiled quail eggs. I'm testing a steamer setup with a chicken egg right now.

 

[Akane]

Another egg!

 

[monarc23]

Actually that's not what the different colors of eggies mean (in button quail). A breeder that discusses things about BQ science driectly with biologysts states that the various colors of BQ eggs depends on how long they were in the hens body before she layed them. The longer they're in the hen the darker they are...the shorter duration they're in the hen the lighter (bright green/blue etc) they are. The color of your eggs suggests that the hens who layed them are not as stressed as a hen who would lay a bright green or blue egg would be. What I mean is that it seems that hens who are stressed will lay their eggs quickly, before all the layers of pigment (and whatever else is on them) gets time to settle.

However it's deffinatly likely those eggs are from all different hens esp if you collected them all in the same day. I've heard of BQ hens laying 2 eggs a day but it's rare.

My BQ hen that's outside has layed her 3rd egg since stopping for the season, they are all a light brown, she's layed green eggs before which means from what i've been told that somethign startled her so she evacuated the eggie quickly lol.

They are deffinatly pretty when layed "earlier" than supposed to but I guess the darker the egg, the better the environment is for the hens...it's like the egg-o-meter of stress.

 

[Akane]

I can't gurantee they are all from today. They were behind the log so I might have missed one yesterday. They definitely weren't there tuesday afternoon when I pulled that male out. That is a downside to my button pen. It's got plenty of little hiding places. They seem content to lay their eggs right out in the open though so long as I look down from the top to see behind things.

Button quail don't have any egg color genetics? The eggs they hatched from had quite a range:

However I did get a bad hatch of only 7 birds from 24 eggs with none of the lighter ones hatching...

 

[ButtonQuailBoy]

*eyes water up* you're so lucky to have quails...please cherish them...where are you located? Can you sell a few? Can your ship if you can?

 

[redhead83402]

wow ~ what a huge difference in size ~ & yet they look big for what I would have thought BQ qould be ~ & what alovely collection of colors! ~SIGH~ I wish I could find a reasonably priced bator ~ I REALLY want some BQ! ~
~Red

 

[monarc23]

nope, egg color has nada to do with genetics in BQs. Atleast not this far in the research that's been done on them.

If I ever find any new info I'll deffinatly letcha know about it!

When I first got into bqs, i thought like you taht they must be genetic since theres so many differences in colors but nope that's not the case...it's the layers in the hens eggs and the duration in which they're let to develop that determines the color.

by the way, you could think that about coturnix quail too, since coturnix quail can come in speckled, pure white, brown etc.

Even chicken eggs from purebreds can come in light and dark colors.

OH and another thing to add, My wild pied, and my cinnamon both hatched out of green eggs....that's two totally different colors to give you an idea.

 

[Akane]

In the spring I might sell some and I'm going to try to sell birds locally. I'm planning to seperate the silver female out and then I'm debating putting the silver male or the darker male that I'm calling slate in with her so I'll have a few eggs from only light buttons. If they sell well I'm going to add a couple splash females next year to have 2 breeding trios.

I'm having trouble figuring out the laws in Iowa for keeping other quail species and whether I'd need a game breeders license. What I found for a game breeders license required an inspection which I'd rather not deal with especially if I keep a pair of cortunix in the house.