Category Archives: Quail – Breeding

Hatching difficulties and Breeding progress in Coturnix coturnix quails

 

Attached find correspondence between me and a Customer, which I felt may have some value to other quail keepers and may also attract valuable input from others.

Hello Domenico,

I thought I had better update you on the eggs you sent, and perhaps learn a bit in the process.
You shipped 36 eggs, and after 24 hours rest at room temperature they were set along with around about 24 of mine..
Sadly I only managed to hatch 7 of your eggs and about 10 of mine, ending up with 13 viable chicks. They are now 40 days old and range from 155 to 180 grams.
The heaviest birds are Tibetans – 165, 180, 180, 180 grams. There is also a Pharoah at 165, one at 160 and two at 155 grams.  White and Italian Golds (4) 150 – 160 grams.
So I am guessing that the Tibetans and half the Pharoahs have come from your stock. (2 of the Tibs have a few white spots on their breast and they all appear to be hens!!) Have definitely one Pharoah cock bird.
So not a stunning result, but at least I have some stock to start with… and with them ready to start laying pretty soon, I should be able to lift numbers pretty quickly. Most of the eggs (yours) that did not hatch appear to have been fertile, but died early on – so I imagine the handling in the courier was a bit rough…but then I only managed a poor hatch of my eggs…so not sure where I have gone wrong.  Am using a Brinslea 48 (chicken) egg, fan forced air incubator, auto turn, but not auto humidity. Was advised after two poor hatches with chickens that I had them too wet, and they were unable to fully develop adequately…so with our quail eggs I did a dry incubation until Lock Down and then added water to lift Rh for last 3-4 days. Have done another hatch just this last few days – 83 quail eggs, hatched 33 with 3 dead in shell. Balance 80% fertile, but failed to make the last few days. Also noted that hatch did not start until Day 18/19. Temps appear to be about 37.25, rather than 37.5 – 37.75°C.
So, would appreciate any ideas you may have, and also, does the weight of the Tibs and Pharoahs suggest to you that they are your stock?
Hope to hear from you soon,
Kind Regards,
Customer
Thanks for the Email and information. Yes 7 out of 36 is very bad even for shipped eggs, but then 10 out of 24 “fresh eggs”, (or 33 out of 83) is not good either, as you mentioned. First and foremost I am prepared to send you another three dozen totally free if you are interested – let me now. If they hatch late it probably points towards too low temperatures. Yes humidity is always a factor and depending on the environmental conditions you may or may not have to ad moisture. The point is that the research has been done and we more or less know what the humidity should be – so I would get a meter and manually keep it as close as possible. With the little information I have, it probably points more towards low temperature than too much humidity. Calibrate your incubator temperature, as ALL incubators are out to a certain degree, unless you want to trial and error until they hatch.
I have the various breeds that I breed and the more characteristics you select for in a breed, the slower overall progress is. For this reason I have a breed (call them Back Yard Specials) where I only select for functional efficiency and not for color at all. The result is that I have this group of birds that resemble Tibetans / Dark Rosettas with some patches of white in some of them. This group of birds constantly outperforms all the other on most of the production parameters and I suspect is the reason of your heavier “Tibetans”. I only weigh growing birds at 7, 21, 35 and 56 days, when I expect them to have reached about 95% of final body mass. The back Yard Specials are at about 200 g on 35 days and 260 at 56 days. The rest are between 10 and 20 g behind at 35 days and about  30 – 40 behind at 56 days. I do not have a cut off point for body mass at present as the mean mass varies and I always select the best animals as replacements to just keep my numbers up – the rest are either for sale of slaughter. These weights are for Females and the Males are always smaller. So I would say your 180 g at 40 days is on par, even though I would have liked one or two 200 g individuals, but with small numbers it is sometimes difficult. Yes the variation within the breeds are still huge and a lot more selection is required.
It is very tempting to terminate all the breeds and keep only one efficient breed of Quail. In this case progress will be even better as I shall have larger numbers of the breed. 

Coturnix coturnix Breeding Progress

When selecting for multiple characters in a single breed, progress is slower the more characters that are selected for simultaneously and vice versa. I have four breeds of Coturnx coturnix for which color is one of the selection parameters. I have therefor decided to have a breed of birds where color does not matter and I am selecting for functional efficiency only. It is remarkable and exiting that in only two years, with relatively small numbers of birds, this new breed (call them BYF Specials) are slowly, but definitely, outperforming the other four breeds. At present most of the birds are dark brown with patches of white. Interesting times ahead!

Golden Italian Quails

Coturnix coturnix

Two years after engaging in this breeding program to improve quails in New Zealand we are starting to see results.  Golden Italians, one of the five breeds we are breeding, are 250 – 300 gram live mass for the females and 230 – 250 for the males. Many of the hereditary defects were eliminated and birds have excellent fecundity and vitality. Egg production is constantly in excess of 90%. One of the traits we also select for is temperament and my birds at present are very calm, docile and happy, a trait that is essential for Coturnix coturnix as they are, and always will be, cage birds in New Zealand.

It may be that in the nearby future we may shelve some of the breeds for which progress seems to be slower than for others. Being a small time breeder, numbers are always important and the less breeds you keep, the more you could keep of the remaining breeds and hopefully will make selection and progress more effectively.

002 - Vitamins

Rare Coturnix coturnix

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Every so often one finds a unique bird in your flock. At present I am breeding four different breeds of Coturnix coturnix, one which is a White breed that was originally developed by the A & M Texas University as a dual purpose bird. The Americans claim their Jumbo Browns to be 450 – 500 g in body mass, but trying to locate such birds or breeders of these large birds appears to be very difficult – I do not know why the Americans want to hide these. Anyway, unlike our friends from abroad, I am not trying to breed the Coturnix coturnix bigger and bigger (if I wanted to breed big birds, I would have started with ostriches), but have put my mind on breeding two of my breeds to be about 280 – 300 g for the females and 220 – 250 for the males – a milestone I have already reached in New Zealand after two and a half years of intensive selection. Hence, I am presently selecting against too big birds in these breeds and made my primary selection criteria egg production, feed conversion, fecundity and body conformation. This is a good size eating bird, which is still an effective producer of both meat and eggs. But back to my unique bird – the A & M Texans are white, but almost always have a black or brown spot somewhere on the body. It is a breed I have had little experience with, but breeding more than 1200 Whites over the past two years, I have bred only three ALL WHITES with no other coloring at all. The first two did not make it on my selection criteria and color not being important to me, they only made it as far as the stock pot. This third all white I have will definitely make it to the breeding pens as he is a magnificent specimen and weighed in at 230 g on 33 days of age. This is my UNIQUE BIRD! (I presume there are other breeders in New Zealand with strains of the pure whites)

 

POOR POOR SERVICE !!!

2014-11-22 - Broken Eggs Salama 42014-11-22 - Broken Eggs Salama 22014-11-22 - Broken Eggs Salama 72014-11-22 - Egg Trays Salama 2 2014-11-22 - Egg Trays Salama 4

I want to state that this post is not a reflection on all quail breeders in New Zealand, with whom I hope to maintain a positive relationship, but an isolated, and hopefully, rare case.

I am trying to get more good unrelated quail (Coturnix coturnix) birds to enhance my breeding programs. Lack of available birds, costs and unwillingness of some breeders to work together in my efforts to enhance the quality of the Coturnix coturnix in New Zealand has forced me to buy eggs and hatch with the hope of finding some good birds among them. Needless to say, it is an uphill battle. I am reporting here on one specific “Breeder” that has sent me three batches of eggs. The first batch had a hatching percentage of 0%. In the same machine were eggs from other breeders which have achieved hatching percentages well in excess of 60%. Consignment two is still in the incubator. Consignment three, of 100 eggs, arrived with 52 visually broken eggs and perhaps many more with hairline cracks – 13 of the unbroken eggs were under 8 g in weight (too small to incubate) – All egg yolks are a palish yellow color, pointing towards very unhealthy and underfed birds. The breakages occurred because the sender cut and stacked the egg trays in such a way that each egg tray actually rested on the eggs below, instead of having the trays supporting each other protecting the eggs (see last photo which is an example – the other photos were actual as the eggs were received).  The “Breeder” refuses to reimburse or replace any eggs as he claims that the courier  to be at fault. I have used the same courier for hundreds of egg consignments wit good results.