Our Coturnix Quail
Coturnix are the standard quail egg and meat bird. They are relatively calm, large quail that get to butcher weight (10-14oz for jumbos, 6-8oz for standards) around 6 weeks of age, giving them a quick turn around time from egg to freezer. Unlike chickens, they can be butchered easily at home with just a pair of good kitchen shears, a bowl of ice water, and a clean bucket. When given appropriate light and feed, the hens lay large, splotched-brown eggs year round, only pausing briefly in the fall to molt into new feathers. They are a GREAT alternative to chickens, as they take up less space, their care is lower-effort than chickens, they eat less and still produce more nutritionally-dense eggs, and they suffer fewer diseases due to being kept off of the ground in hutches instead of free ranging.
Our Celadon Bloodlines
We currently have three homozygous lines of celadon quail: CE, EE, RF, EC, and FM (these are line names).
Our first and original line is the CE line. Eggs from this line are marked with CE and birds will be banded blue. This bloodline dates back to 2021 when we started this journey with quail. The first male in the pen is het EB, het fawn. The other male is homozygous EB, het roux. The hens are either het or homozygous EB, and some are roux or fee. Offspring from this pen may be homozygous EB, het EB, or pharaoh, and also homo-or-hemizygous Roux, homo-or-hemizygous SLB, het fawn, or het fee.
The EE line is the previous stage in our wild type celadon line. This is a roux male over wild type celadon hens, producing roux pharaoh celadon hens and wild type het roux celadon males. This makes the offspring sex-linked, meaning the babies from this group will hatch out two different colors- one for males, one for females. Sexing them at hatch means you don't need to spend time and money raising males you don't want, or guessing at which are which.
We recently settled the roux fee (RF) line, which is a wild color pharaoh het roux male over roux fee pharaoh hens. They will produce het fee pharaoh and roux het fee pharaoh.
The EC line is not currently available, but will be available starting in July. This is a wild color pharaoh male over wild type hens, and will produce wild type celadon hens, roux celadon hens, wild type celadon males, and wild type het roux males.
The FM line is our fawn celadon project line, and produces birds with the fawn gene, pharaoh gene, slb gene, and suspected roux gene. They are all 100% celadons, but only the SLB pharaoh (both sexes) and fawn (males) will be available, as we are collecting birds for this project.
Our first and original line is the CE line. Eggs from this line are marked with CE and birds will be banded blue. This bloodline dates back to 2021 when we started this journey with quail. The first male in the pen is het EB, het fawn. The other male is homozygous EB, het roux. The hens are either het or homozygous EB, and some are roux or fee. Offspring from this pen may be homozygous EB, het EB, or pharaoh, and also homo-or-hemizygous Roux, homo-or-hemizygous SLB, het fawn, or het fee.
The EE line is the previous stage in our wild type celadon line. This is a roux male over wild type celadon hens, producing roux pharaoh celadon hens and wild type het roux celadon males. This makes the offspring sex-linked, meaning the babies from this group will hatch out two different colors- one for males, one for females. Sexing them at hatch means you don't need to spend time and money raising males you don't want, or guessing at which are which.
We recently settled the roux fee (RF) line, which is a wild color pharaoh het roux male over roux fee pharaoh hens. They will produce het fee pharaoh and roux het fee pharaoh.
The EC line is not currently available, but will be available starting in July. This is a wild color pharaoh male over wild type hens, and will produce wild type celadon hens, roux celadon hens, wild type celadon males, and wild type het roux males.
The FM line is our fawn celadon project line, and produces birds with the fawn gene, pharaoh gene, slb gene, and suspected roux gene. They are all 100% celadons, but only the SLB pharaoh (both sexes) and fawn (males) will be available, as we are collecting birds for this project.
The Non-Celadons
We have one remaining line of non-homozygous celadons; the EW line. This is a wild type het ce male over wild type homo ce hens, meaning 50% of the offspring will only be het ce. This is my "backup" wild type cage while I work on the main WTCE line. If you're looking for brown eggers, they'll come from this line until it retires!
