Colours of Coturnix Japonica Quail Part Three - White, Panda, Tibetan, Rosetta & Tuxedo

I'm not sure why this would be, possibly hidden within the genetics of breeding these lovable creatures but along with the golden quail, discussed here in Part 2, the English White, Pandas, Tibetan and Rosetta Tuxedo, seem to be the most friendly of all the quail I have bred.  Together with this characteristic, in fact instrumental in its process, is the ability of these quail to bond to each other in monogamous pairs and thus to revert to their natural instincts to nest and hatch. Thus, if your ambition is to breed quail for companionship, gardening and free-ranging ability and the penchant for raising their own chicks then in my opinion, mixing these colours into your flock is the way to achieve your goals.

It has been interesting when researching the colours of coturnix to come up against such a paucity of information. Creating a Tibetan or Rosetta quail, with their beautiful and complex feathering is surely something to crow about but the origins at present seem lost, or maybe they will be found at some time. It certainly took me some digging in my recent Cochin article to find the name of the owner of the mourning Pekinese, who were unceremoniously snatched from their mistresses' dead body and carried off as trophies to furnish the first breeds of these dogs in the West.

Trying to find the history of the English White quail or in fact any of the above is a rather tortuous process and getting more so unfortunately, as for most of my origins of specific poultry breeds, I have to dig into older texts and articles. For, what presents itself on the internet tends to involve a greater proportion of cut-and-paste and a mix of confusion. For example the name English White is often used as synonymous with the Texas A&M quail. The latter is actually very easy to trace,  the clue is in the name and was a large or 'Jumbo' hybrid a cross with the  'Texas Gourmet' a quail first raised by the Texas A&M's Poultry Department in 1995 by  Dr. Fred Thornberry and trialed at the Diamond H Ranch. When
Dr Lee Cartwright joined the Faculty he began a program of breeding the Gourmet quail with the English White this too was/is mainly for commercial use but many 'backyard' breeders do raise them and I have also found organically raised Texas A&M in the UK.

Left top: English White female and Rosetta Tuxedo male.
Below left: English White chick

There is a sort of subset of the English White called 'Panda' where the head shows patches of 'Pharaoh' or wild quail feathering. These actually are very pretty and the markings can be in interesting shapes, I have had several with heart shapes. Sometimes the patches of colour turn up on the back and wings too. It is actually quite hard to breed a totally white quail and some breeders report that over-breeding of whites has the potential to produce albino quail. In the juveniles at the drinking fountain (left) you can see the Panda patterning beginning to appear within the distribution of the emerging feathers.

English White 'Panda' and Tibetan Tuxedo enjoy a similarly 'pied' lettuce

Rosetta Tuxedo dining alone

My simple understanding of the genetics for how the different combinations of colours for feather show up and in what proportions is,  that with the pied birds, known as Tuxedos, the genes for recessive white make the 'waistcoat, 'shirtfront' and sometimes also 'sleeves'. The dominant chocolate or chestnut colour from the Tibetan or Rosetta will then make the 'tail coat' and 'trousers'. These are the two sorts of Tuxedo I have had to date but I believe you can make Tuxedos out of any combination(s) of dominant colours with recessive white.

Dark British Range aka Tibetan is a beautiful bird, in which like the white the female is larger than the male. In French this colour in quail and pheasants is called 'Obscure' which is a more poetic way of saying dark.

A close up of the plumage shows some incredible patterning and the birds themselves I have always found to be friendly albeit the females can become very dominant.

Similarly with the Rosetta, there are some amazing nuances of shades and markings when you look at the feathers in detail. At this magnification you can see the subtle influence of Pharaoh patterning but there is a lot more to it than that.

Sir John Sebright, although ultimately taking his secret to his grave viz., the genetics of the beautiful bird that bears his name, freely admitted that he would produce any given feather in three years.

Thus it would seem fitting that the person who created these should make themselves known!

The Rosetta (above) aka British Range, is a beautiful bird which was created from a combination of English White and Dark British Range.

Left is a Golden Italian mother with her Rosetta Tuxedo chick 

With the Rosetta, the females are larger than the males and in the ones I have, the females are more friendly, although they can get very assertive and vocal around other younger males, in the nesting season. In particular they use a very unusual sort of 'yammering' or guttural chattering, which is a vocalisation I haven't heard from other quail in relation to territory and hierarchy disputes with juveniles.

The males of both the Rosetta Tuxedo above and the Tibetan Tuxedo below are not unfriendly but just seem to be more wary of humans than the female Tuxedos.

Now here's the film of our beautiful English White and Pandas:

Looking at my quail in their Winter sleeping quarters, I can't help thinking of an exotic box of chocolates, whatever the name and whoever came up with these spectacular feather colours, they are truly beautiful.

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 channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

Until next time, all the very best from Normandie! Sue

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© 2020 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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