Ginger / Red colour form

hi everyone,

I have an interest in genetics (I used to
love to predict colour and feather patterns when I used to breed budgies).

I'm new to quails, but I've been doing some research on the different colour forms. I have seen references to "ginger" and "red" forms, but not seen them being sold anywhere. Anyone seen these?

Is this a distinct colour mutation or the result of a combination of existing colour factors (e.g. Fawn/Gold or Fawn/Range)? I suggest Fawn (or Cinnamon) might be a factor because the pictures I've seen (Quails from Wales web site) look like a darker form of Fawn. Also, because Fawn is recessive which would explain why it's quite rare. I obviously don't know and am purely speculating. Anyone out there bred this/these colours?

Cheers,
Andoy

Suz and I have been trying to figure out the genetic base for some of her colours.

We know its not cinnamon, and probably not ginger going by inheritance. Its also not fawn because its the wrong colour.

I saw a funny colour on ebay recently, and asked the seller what colour the chick was at hatch, then asked if he'd have any for sale in a month as my brooders were full, unfortunately I never got a reply so looks like I won't have chance to test

Hi there Ms internet_nobody,





Are Fawn and Cinnamon a different colour? I
thought Cinnamon was the American description for Fawn colour. The literature
and references are all a bit vague on colour.





I think I saw the same ginger quail on
eBay. I think he described it as “red range type", which started me
thinking about the genetic makeup of the colour. I guess I can experiment by
breeding Fawn with Gold, then breed resulting Gold offspring with another Fawn
(ditto with Range x Fawn combo).





The best way to find out the genetic makeup
of an unusual coloured bird is to make as many crosses as possible with different
colours and see what you get. If it’s a recessive factor (or sexed linked and
you have a hen), then you won’t see it in any of the offspring. That makes it a
bit more of a challenge, and you might have to resort to doing some line
breeding (inbreeding) which I’d try to avoid as much as possible.





There doesn’t seem to be as much colour breeding
in quails as there is in other birds (e.g. budgies have at least 20 well
documented standard colour mutations, combined into hundreds of colour variations).
I suppose Japanese quails have been bred mainly for egg production, size and
growth rate. Maybe I’m a bit greedy and want it all… a pretty and tasty bird in
one! <ha> <ha> (I’m gay by the way, which makes it doubly funny)





Andoy

From what I can work out there's 2 types of cinnamon. Regular cinnamon (cin) which is recessive, and Al*c (ie with a little superscript c) which is dominant. The Al*c gives you a bright ginger bird, like someone with flaming red hair. Fawn is like a pale golden, cinnamon...well I can't seem to find a picture, just descriptions, and it sounds gingery so they do sound like different mutations.

Derek has some birds he calls cinnamon due to their colour, but he's only hatched hens which suggests some sort of sex linked gene rather than the recessive cin (or he's just been incredibly lucky/unlucky!!). They also grow up to be a similar adult colour to some of Suz's, but the chicks are totally different!

Hi Andoy,

I have both fawns and Cinnamons (a bird I call Cinnamon) which are both different colours. I don't get many cinnamons, but I've noticed all the ones I've hatched have all been female and only come out in every other genaration.

Until the whole world gets together on what to call each colour, there is going to be a lot of confusion. The American and us Brits have different names for the same colours/varieties.

Derek.

I have no problem posting pictures of my fawn/ginger/cinnamon/orange ???(what ever you want to call them) mutations, but seems little point when there's nothing to compare them too, and i think that's where the real confusion starts - its fine folk saying they have a particular colour, but its still just personal interpretation of the colour - ie: what i call a ginger maybe someone else's calls a cinnamon.

Until we gather our resources together, (photo's being of the greatest importance) the naming of colours is just going to get worse, even the most common colours still can't be agreed on - I was looking at two different sites yesterday, with 1 showing pictures of chicks with expected adult colours, the second a written description of the same chicks, I disagree completely with 1 of the colours and have doubts about the 2nd, but until there's a decent place of reference misnaming colours is something we'll have to live with.

Suz

I have 2 really chocolate brown coloured japanese quails (very pretty) one male one female, any thoughts on what these would be? I can't get photos online yet, can't work it out, but i will keep trying.
Hugs
Batty XxX

Hi Suz, Derek and Ms internet_nobody,

Wow great replies and feedback folks, I love this forum already. Your feedback explains a few things. I totally agree with Suz on getting together to standardise the names for colour mutations. This is where professional and amateur breeders, societies and forums like these come in. I guess a person/persons with some authority or standing in quail breeding needs to step forward and specify the standard/conventions and we can all fall in line. I noticed Suz’s post in the notice board for Japanese Quail breed standard and setting up the National Quail Society. I think that is a great idea and surprised there isn’t one already. As a general principle, the breeder who discovers or develops the strain/mutation should get to name it (that is how the RHS operates and I know a similar principle applies with the tropical fish hobby also). I guess from a taxonomical perspective, I’m more used to seeing genus/species/variety. Some of the names like; Spanish, Italian, Pharaoh seem a bit archaic and steeped in some historic relevance long lost. I’ll happily volunteer my time and web development/design skills to your noble cause.

Derek and Ms internet_nobody, I definitely concur that the colour mutation you call Cinnamon behaves suspiciously like it is sex-linked.

When I was a lad (back in the previous Millennium), I used to breed budgies. One of my favourite colour mutations was called “Opaline” and it is a sex-linked trait.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the genetics of sex-linked inheritance in birds, I found this web site that explains it a lot better than I can… www.budgieplace.com/gen_opaline.html One important additional note to make is that the sex determinant chromosome in birds is the reverse of mammals. I.e. XY= female bird and XX= male bird. Also, when geneticist refer to sex-linked traits they usually refer to it being a recessive trait on the X chromosome (the Y chromosome is directly inherited mother-daughter in birds, father-son in mammals).

Female birds will physically express the feature if they have it, because they only have one X chromosome. Male birds will only physically manifest the feature if they have 2 copies of the genetic mutation (i.e. on each X chromosome). If male birds only have one copy then they don’t manifest the mutation and look normal, but they are carriers and may go on to produce females that manifest the mutation (hence the effect of skipping a generation and appearing only in females).

To breed the colour consistently, you need to get some males with this colour. The easiest way of doing that is pairing a male who has proven to produce hens with this mutation (i.e. a carrier) with a hen that has this colour. You should then get 50% of both males and females in Cinnamon if it is indeed sex-linked mutation. Of course the pairing should be from birds that are as distantly related as possible if you want to use the resultant offspring as future breeding stock. The colour should breed true if you pair males and females with the mutation. But once you have some male birds, you should be able to breed them with any number of unrelated normal females and produce 100% of the hens in Cinnamon (and all the male offspring will be carriers). So once you established and understand the mechanism for inheritance, you should be able to continually breed with new birds and establish the colour in other strains (jumbo, minature, pied/tux etc.)

This is all provided that Cinnamon is a straight forward sex-linked trait. Sometimes the story has more twists in it.

My, I seem to have waffled on, but this subject fascinates me incredibly. Anyway Derek, if you’ve got any spare eggs from your Cinnamon hens or any other unusual colour forms, I’d love to have a go also and add them to my little rainbow collection ;o)

Andoy

p.s. sorry Batty, I don't know what colour that is. Looking at Katie Thear's book I'd guess it's what's called "English Range" or "Extended Brown" (which is described as incompletely dominant-- whatever that means?). Anyone out there recognise Batty's description?

Hi Andoy,

lol, I'm so glad I too bred budgies back in the early 70's, otherwise I would'nt of understood a word of that Since then, there have been so many colour mutations, I'm just about lost in budgie colours these days.

I'll have to keep some of the next lot of Cinnamons I hatch out so to save you some eggs, your about 3 days late to save the last couple. As I've not seen a male cinnamon, what do you suggest I pair up any future females with? as my breeding group is a mixture of my home bred hens (all normal) 2 "italians" and a range. The males from a different line being Normal, "italian" golden and an odd looking normal marked male with a white chest (simular to a tuxedo).

I would also say, batty's bird is some sort of range too, without a picture it's hard to be right.

Derek.

HiYa

This is an example of what I've been breeding as Chocolate Quail -

First pic a choc self or choc range


and this a choc Tux


This next picture is of a range (with barring)



and this a range tux (no barring)



and an example of a melanistic Range ( in real life she is very dark)



I've notices while breeding my Range that there is umpteen hue & shades appear among them. but I presume they are all still range???

Suz

Hi Derek,

Does that mean you haven’t used the male offspring from any of your Cinnamon hens for any further breeding? (i.e. you always import new cocks from different sources). If the trait is sex-linked, I would expect it to be carried by all the male offspring of your Cinnamon hens into the next generation. The normal hens can't carry the trait if it is sex-linked.

If you haven’t got many birds (or space) and want to shortcut the testing process then you can mate “father of Cinnamon hen” to Cinnamon hen, alternatively Cinnamon hen to one of her sons. This should produce 50/50 Cinnamon/Normal offspring of both sexes. I personally wouldn’t use these inbred offspring for further breeding (unless they were the only examples of the trait I had left).

I find keeping breeding records helps also. A simple spreadsheet giving each bird a unique identifier and description of visible and carrier traits that are known/suspected. Granted, not so easy with birds that you keep in groups that leave eggs lying around.

Andoy

p.s. My 1st pair of budgies were an unremarkable looking pair (green cock and pied green/yellow hen), but they threw out just about every colour of the rainbow; different hues of greens and blue, yellows, whites, opalines, cinnamon, recessive pieds and even one spectacular yellowface blue. Every clutch reveled a new twist in the story.

andoy wrote:Hi Derek,


Andoy

p.s. My 1st pair of budgies were an unremarkable looking pair (green cock and pied green/yellow hen), but they threw out just about every colour of the rainbow; different hues of greens and blue, yellows, whites, opalines, cinnamon, recessive pieds and even one spectacular yellowface blue. Every clutch reveled a new twist in the story.

I find all 'this' breeding fascinating and would never have thought that so many colours could have come from your 'unremarkable' pair of budgies. It just goes to show how intriguing the 'gene' factor works in all living things.

From just thinking about having a few quail - reading these topics has definitely whetted my appetite for having different colours and breeding from them.

I have a couple of Derek's 'cinnamon' quail hatched out - amongst others - and its going to be fun to see who they all look when they have their adult feather

Hi Andoy,

I alway buy in my males either as youngsters or as eggs, this way I can always be sure they are not that closly related.

As I breed my birds for either meat or eggs, this latest batch was destined for the freezer which they went the other day.
Keeping them in breeding groups as I do, it's impossable to know who layed the egg or who the father of any chicks produced. I know this group will and does produce the colour I call cinnamon, so next time I might just keep a couple.

I keep lots of records on my birds/animal, a thing I learn't at poultry college. I attended The West of Scotland college where I got a HND in poultry husbandy and poultry science. I've had many years working with all types of poultry over the last 40 odd years.

Derek.

hi Derek,

If you've never breed from any of your males, I'm not so sure your Cinnamon is sex-linked after all. I'm still new to quails, so I'm just guessing really. Very intriguing.

Andoy

p.s. Next time you're selling any eggs from this group, let me know.

Woops - knew I should visit this forum more often, but always forget!

Ebay eggs are mine - I wrote that first advert up in about 30 seconds, so the quickest way I could think of describing the hens colour was red range. Basically because she has the markings of a normal brown range bird, but the base colour of her feathers is red.

I have some eggs in the incubator, due soon, so I can see what colours I end up hatching.

I'm perfectly willing to experiment with this colour, as I think it would be very interesting to find out how it works, and I'm fully in support of you colour standardising attempts.

I'll try to get in some unrelated birds (already working on it!) and I'm sure I could try breeding her with different males in order to create slightly unrelated sets of offspring, which could then be bred together, or I could even try to create two separate family groups.

As I said, I'm happy to experiment with the colour.
Emma - sorry I totally forgot to reply to your second message - but yes, I should still have eggs to sell in a few weeks.

I'll see if I can dig out a chick photo too...
Harry

Hi Harry

I bid on your eggs today but was out bid by Andoy - what sort of percentage of red chicks are you getting from her, is is 50/50?

2nd questions - how does her colour compare to this one of mine?



Thanks

Suz

Hi Suz,
as for percentage of chicks - I honestly don't know! Eggs are candling fertile, and as I said, should be due very soon, but no chicks so far!

Also the confusion of the fact that I have two girls in together - one being golden.... I'll let you know when I hatch some chicks, anyway.

As for colour, I suppose she is quite similar to that of yours. Maybe a bit paler in some areas, although she does actually seem to be getting gradually darker... I'll try to get a new photo soon.
Harry