Colours of Coturnix Japonica Quail Part Two - The Golden

My understanding is that the Golden quail I have belong to the two main types of 'Golds', which in English are known as the Italian and the Manchurian. However,  as discussed in previous articles, some breeders insist that these are alternate names for the same golden bird! Whatever your belief, there are nuances due to patterns and markings (see the 'Italian Speckled' female below), which do seem to merit their own specific nomenclature. Equally important, is the vexed question of genetics in the golden colouring of fur and feathers; i.e. the yellow allele, which is lethal when homozygous but more of this later.

In France, life is much simpler and all the golden quail are just known under the one name of 'Isabelle' (variation Isobel or Isabela), a colour which came into being due to an oath taken by Queen Isabella of Spain. Legend has it that during the siege of Granada (1482 - 1492), the Queen declared that she wouldn't change her court dress until the battle was over and Granada was back under Spanish rule. By the end of the siege, the Queen's dress had taken on colours associated with the heat and dust of the battlefield, rust red, white and black. To commemorate the event, the colour known as Isabelle was established and is a recognised standard for cats (apparently only female felines can attain this particular shade), horses, dogs and quail. As all the original Golden quail in France, are said to descend from a small clutch of 20 eggs brought over from Portugal via Spain, this may also explain its use as a colour here.

 

The Lethal Yellow Allele

Most things associated with genetics are liable to make my eyes glaze over but I'll have a go all the same. It's important for me to try to understand this because it begs the question on both whether or not there are two types of golden quail and furthermore, on how safe or otherwise it is to breed golden to golden. My understanding of this allele is that it produces a plumage that is 'wheat-straw yellow'. In addition, this is a dominant mutation which is lethal when the embryo has two identical alleles for this trait, which can be expressed as YY. I believe this was discovered, as many genetic expressions have been, by extrapolation from abnormal birth ratios. Thus, in studies looking at mice the allele for yellow fur (Y) is dominant over that for grey (y) so when a pair of yellow furred heterozygous mice (Yy), (thus having non-identical alleles for their yellow colour), get together, they are expected to produce a much greater ratio of yellow baby mice to grey and the fact that they don't is because the YY mice babies do not survive to birth.  

This might explain why many breeders seem to have no problem producing golden chicks but there are umpteen academic papers on how Manchurian golden quail do have problems. To me therefore it would seem logical that there are two distinctively different breeds of Golden quail. Convincing or not, this is what my so-called Italian golden quail chicks (including the Italian Speckled variation) look like and why I am wary of crossing my Manchurian females with Manchurian males

If you are interested in finding out more about genetics then I can recommend this book 'Genetics of the Fowl' by Hutt, I have a copy and dip into it quite often when I'm researching specific breeds or attributes, it's not the sort of work I would want to read read at a sitting!

As with many seminal works it is quite pricey  but I see there are various sites which have a pdf version.

Italian Gold

The Golden Italian is the name used for golden plumage, lightly speckled mainly on the back and sides with rust, white and black. The males have a Zorro type mask that gets more distinctive as they get older and also in the breeding season, whereas the females have black speckled markings in bands around the back and sides of the head, emanating Cleopatra-like from the corners of the eye.

The other interesting trait of the Goldens, is that they were the first of all my quail to make nests, go broody and sit eggs. Logic dictated, that once we had provided both suitable nourishment and environment it would have been my  brown Pharaoh quail, which would have done this first, being nearer to the wild European version. Furthermore, it was my Golden quail, Tuxedo and English White that were the first to form monogamous pairs. Below is my beautiful Golden Italian Quail with a Rosetta Tuxedo and English White chick.

Below is one of my Golden Italian males (actually Antonio, as I can't get away from the idea of Zorro) in full Summer colours. I actually believe he is an Italian x Manchurian because his mask, now in the breeding season, is much more spectacular than the norm!

Close up of two Italian Gold chicks.

Left: Chick Soaking up the rays and creating some valuable Vitamin D3.

Photogenic juvenile: below.

 

Italian Speckled

I have quite a few of these but mostly females. The male are almost identical to the female except for the usual golden quail brown/black mask. As with the Italian Golds, the females have distinctive dark speckled banding around the back of the head. They are incredibly striking aesthetically and again as with the other Italian Quail, in my experience they make excellent bonded pairs and really caring mothers.

Above three female Italian Speckled and an English White Male. Below a juvenile Italian Speckled.

As mentioned above, it was my Golden quail which were the first to nest and become broody. However as many Goldens are bred from crossing with Pharaoh my anecdotal evidence is that crosses have strong maternal instincts. For example, Lucky (left) is a Sebright cross hen, whereas Sebrights are notoriously short-term mothers. The chick she is free-ranging and teaching how to forage is a juvenile male  Italian Speckled.

Below is a whole drift of Golden Quail including male and female Golden Italian and Speckled Italian (and Manchurian).

Below, a very affectionate Italian Speckled quail chick...

and our very loveable 'Golden Grandma', a 5 year old Italian Speckled female.

 

Manchurian

This then would be the colour I would think of as 'wheat straw'. Here below is Alphonse in full cry and in full Summer plumage.

..and here he is again at just two and a half months old.

Left is Caramel with her chicks, once again a great mother.  Unlike two of my other golden females, she did not actually pair bond with a male. She became broody only a few days before I had an emergency with a quail hatch and she obliged by accepting the chicks. She has been the most amazingly vocal of all my quail, producing what I can only think of as wild quail calls to her chicks. She has given me great hopes that eventually the original and presumed extinct (after WWI) 'Singing' coturnix quail will return!

Now here's the film: 

In Conclusion

Convinced or not, I hope I've illustrated the beauty of these Golden quail.

It was a mixture of Pharaoh and 'Isabelle' eggs which cured Andy's hay fever and eczema. The Golden quail have been instrumental in making my dreams come true, for a coturnix to raise her own chicks.

I started raising my quail with a hen, I've never used an incubator but if you are just beginning with quail and do not have a suitable bantam then that is an option. As far as I am concerned quail are wonderful little birds and a joy to keep, whatever the colour!

Thanks for dropping by and do feel free to share experiences or ask for further information in the comment section. If you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it with your family and friends, on social media and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube, Odysee  or BitChute Channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

Until next time when I will be discussing English White and Tuxedo, Sue

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© 2021 Sue Cross

One of my coturnix quail has gone broody and is sitting. A Fred and Ginger production!

You know how it is, you've been hoping and planning for an event and just as you finally start to get ready for action, your poultry decide they've waited long enough for an outcome and take charge.

Fred and his best friend Dorothy keeping guard whilst Ginger is laying.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I started reading about fatal genes in the Golden quail.  There is a lot of conflicting  information because well it's genetics and thus exceedingly complicated. Even the nomenclature 'Golden' quail is somewhat controversial, in French these quail are know as Isabelle but in English there are two recognised type of golden quail - the Italian and the Manchurian. You will read in some papers and articles that it is the latter or the former that carry the fatal gene. This however, is further complicated by the fact that some articles I've read, insist that the Italian and Manchurian quail are one and the same! In my experience with purchased hatching eggs and through talking to other quail keepers, it is certainly true here, that all Golden quail seem very frail and have poor hatch and survival rates. My golden quail I've had now for three years from hatch and although they wouldn't get any prizes from purists, as all the feathers are patterned differently, they are gold and they are healthy.

However, not to tempt fate nor F.B. Hutt et al, I have decided to steer away from crossing gold with gold of any sort. In France this makes even more sense, as the Isabelle are said to have been raised from a very small gene pool, just 20 original eggs brought in from Portugal. Thus on top of the fatal gene issue, we have consanguinity to add to and exacerbate the problem.

Some two weeks ago on a visit to our local organic dairy farm to collect our milk and where they keep quail, I asked if they had an English White or Range or any other colour other than gold to sell me. In fact they had a lovely Tuxedo, which I instantly wanted but could not have, as he was their only example of the colour. So I asked to borrow him for a week. In the event and just in case there was some friction between my quail and Fred, I brought his friend with him. This English White quail was of undetermined sex but I called 'her' Dorothy after Dorothy Lamour because she had a heart shaped pattern on the back of her neck. This complicated things rather as I always felt she was keeping a beady eye on Fred and perhaps rather cramping his style!

One of last year's nests under the rosemary

In my reading around the subject of wild quail because this is the way I am sure I will get the happiest and healthiest creatures, I found that the female is drawn to start nesting by hearing the male cry. Apocryphal or not, last year when I had a male quail, my female quail made nests. This year when they started laying in early April, they were just laying in a random, devil-may-care sort of way, single eggs in different places each day. However, the day after Fred arrived I noticed one of my golden quail hiding behind the pallet wood vertical garden shelving in the greenhouse and I noticed her return there the next day too. On the following day I investigated and found three eggs in a row, it is a really tight squeeze in there, so every time she got up from laying she left the eggs in a rather haphazard way. However, on subsequent days I noticed she would gather them together before she laid and that she was going back in there, during the day, seemingly both to check on the eggs and to turn them too. This quail I now named Ginger, for obvious reasons.

I was now getting very excited, Ginger had laid six eggs in all but Fred was destined to go back to the farm the very next day when we went for the milk. From all I have read, I am still not totally sure how important the male is, nor exactly sure if he is involved in sitting. As wild quail, are  very private, shy birds, there is no great body of research on their behaviours. They do actually have wild quail on the farm but assure me they have never seen two birds together on a nest but my belief is, from watching Fred, that in the early stages of nesting even if the male does not sit he is very near by. According to a paper I read on the subject; Nesting and Parental Behavior in Domestic Common Quail, Orcutt and Orcutt (1976), the male sits within 30cms of the nest for at least the laying of the eggs and for some part of the sitting. This was true of Fred as you can see from the photograph above (top) and the film. So I decided to ask to borrow Fred for another week, just in case Ginger decided to sit. In the event Ginger started to sit that very same day.

I was really worried now, as it meant I would have to leave Ginger outside in the greenhouse all night rather than put her away with the others in their little wooden house. We have a variety of predators here but the worst for quail are rats, which although I shouldn't say it, I have not seen for several years. We also had a weasel here quite recently but I was hoping that Ginger was well enough hidden. I placed a board in front of her at night and a couple of bricks along the front of the greenhouse door where there was a slight gap. How happy I was the next morning to see her still sitting and in good health!

With regards to how often she comes off the nest, this is rather a vexed question as the first day I did not see her move at all and I was, as you can imagine, rather a fixture in the greenhouse. One thing I noticed over the next few days though, was a complete change in attitude towards Fred. She became progressively more and more aggressive towards him and for that matter most of the other quail. She did not however, exhibit that 'puffed up' and erratic scratching of the classic broody hen. Orcutt and Orcutt on the subject write that their male had feathers missing from his head by the 5th day of incubation! Conversely however, she became more accepting of me and finally by the 4th day of incubation actually came from the nest and out to meet me at the greenhouse door when I was feeding the poultry in the morning.

Fred caught snacking again with friends

I also read in the Orcutt article, that they actually had to remove their male from the breeding pen, as he was showing less interest in the nest and he was being attacked. I did however, wonder at this behaviour from Ginger. She was particularly aggressive towards Fred when she saw him around the food bowl in the morning and I did wonder if she really wanted him to be guarding the nest or even sitting. In an Experimental Study of Nesting by Coturnix Quail, Vernon C. Stevens, The Journal of Wildlife Management, (1961) the author seems to indicate a more proactive role for the male. However, I was rather hoping Fred would not be that important to Ginger, as by the next weekend he would have to go back to the farm!

So here I am with my design for a secure quail breeding area still in the workshop and Ginger already sitting and on her 6th day of incubation. Fred is still in the dog house and Dorothy possibly quite happy about it. Whatever happens, I have backup in the form of my little Cochin Snow Queen who is already sitting on some of the other quail eggs, which I am hoping are fertile by Fred too. If Ginger gives up then I will transfer the eggs to her.

One of my most important precautions for Ginger though,  is in nutritional support. As you can see in the photos, now they are laying, I have been stocking up the greenhouse with compost and keeping the large compost  bins closed as the chicks have had their share. This is, however, part of my Spring schedule, spreading compost in order to get the greenhouse ready for planting. As our principal compost bins are chock full of arthropods, I have set up a 'holding bin'  actually in the greenhouse and Ginger gets the first pick of this every morning. I am hoping all the methionine and the B complex vitamins this food will provide,  will keep her stress levels down to a minimum and save Fred from a few plucked feathers.

Part Two the update is here 

Fingers crossed... and now if you'd like to sit back and watch the film:


Fred snacking again this time on a courgette/zucchini.
Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it and also maybe about joining this blog. Please also feel free to ask questions or make comments in the section below.

All the very best,
Sue


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