Quail Breeding

[jusdeb]

The over supply may be regional as I hand rear parrots and never have a problem selling them .

I jumped straight into Goulds and without much experience , wasnt easy but I still learnt as I went however theres no way as much as I would like to that I would take on any of the rarer or more costly finches.

[thehammer]

The over supply may be regional as I hand rear parrots and never have a problem selling them .

In vic, the price of conures has dropped considerably- green cheeked conures have been over bred for many years now. At stores the prices remain unrealistically high, however they don’t sell quickly and when they do they aren’t young any longer. Unfortunately many pet parrots are loaded off to someone else often due to noise – rainbows, sun and Nanday conures, etc.
The best way to judge is go to bird sales and see what breeders are trying to sell and what they can’t sell.

I jumped straight into Goulds and without much experience , wasnt easy but I still learnt as I went however theres no way as much as I would like to that I would take on any of the rarer or more costly finches.

The Gouldian comment wasn’t directed at you personally as I didn’t know you started with Gouldians.

However it applies to beginners. How often do you hear I purchased some Gouldians because of the pretty colours and soon after they are dead.

[jusdeb]

In this day and age with computers theres no reason for anyone to blindly go into any breed of bird . All the knowledge is right in front of anyone willing to do the homework .
Theres quite a few people on here that start out with Goulds and have success with them however these are the people that get on here and ask questions

Agree with the conures statement but again it comes down to mainly pet shop owners and their greed from what Ive seen . I recently asked one in another town what they paid for hand reared greencheeks $20.00 pffft and yet he was selling unproven pairs for $400.00 again pfft .

The noisier birds are often rehomed again because people dont do the homework and find out about noise ( which is why I have G/cheeks , low noise ).

Living here in the middle of nowhere with only 1 pet shop in town means demand is usually greater than supply ...I imagine in high population areas things would be different .

[Diane]

We seem to be getting a little off topic here
However "in for a penny in for a pound"
I have paired a father and daughter gouldian together.
Not a decision taken lightly I can assure you. I would much prefer line breeding. No suitable hen was to be found after many attempts.
I would however inform any potential owner as to that fact that the birds were related and explain the relationship, and have in fact done so to one member privately on this forum when I was asked about selling him a pair and posted publicly about the pairing.
Also this inbreeding was undertaken on my knowing the daughter bird was the result of a complete outcross, so this would be the only inbreeding taking place, and that each bird was as healthy as could possibly be.
As a further precaution I would sell the young cocks and hens to different places.
As it turns out this pairing has allowed me to to find out that both the father and daughter are split to white chest.

Just stating my reasons and thoughts about my pairing of closely related birds.

With regard to the mutations, I agree the natural colours are terrific and I would never want to lose them. I also keep the normal mutations and keep full breeding records of every bird I have, but I do like the challenge with the mutation gouldians. Regardless of colour my aim is to produce a good strong healthy bird.

[jusdeb]

Controlled inbreeding to obtain a desired result

Chucking a pair of birds in a cage and letting offspring inbreed

I kinda dont class what you did as wrong Di at all , if I were to label it I would call it selective breeding .

[spanna]

That's exactly it deb. As long as you know what you're doing (and are honest about it), mother to son breeding for a purpose isn't a problem in most cases. My purpose with these quails: establish whether or not the traits of a female bird effect the extent of red on male offspring. These birds will be outcrossed as soon as this is established, already have unrelated birds ready.

[Quail Dale]

Controlled inbreeding to obtain a desired result

Chucking a pair of birds in a cage and letting offspring inbreed

I kinda dont class what you did as wrong Di at all , if I were to label it I would call it selective breeding .

Inbreeding and Linebreeding is wrong. It has cause problems in many show animals like budgies, that have low fertility, have trouble flying and results in deformed young and chicks that die in the egg, all because people are try for the perfect bird.

I've seen yellow princess parrot that were about half the size they should have been, from inbreeding. Just because the breeder wanted to breed as many as possible to make money.
The only time any inbreeding is acceptable in my book, is when trying to establish a new mutation and it is only need if the mutation is recessive, but you need to outcross as much as possible.

We all selective breed, when I pair up birds I look in the aviary and "select" two birds that I like and put them together, as long as they are NOT related.

If you think inbreeding is fine than what John and Jenny Deaves done must be fine as well. http://www.news.com.au/incest-dad-saw-t ... 1115990395

Dale

P.S Can someone move the posts to a new topic, like "For or Against Inbreeding" with a link to and from this topic? as this could go on for a long, long time.

[jusdeb]

Yes a new topic would be good and I am interested to hear other peoples opinions ....

I stand by what I have been quoted as saying even though I havent had to in breed or line breed up to now it is an option I would undertake if I thought it absolutely necessary.

Now lets not all go jumping down Debs throat here OK ... although I love that forumers are so passionate about their beliefs, Deb has a pain in her head and isnt up to being singled out for saying what I think AGAIN

[Quail Dale]

My purpose with these quails: establish whether or not the traits of a female bird effect the extent of red on male offspring.

Is the female different?
Breeding the son back to the mother is not going to prove anything. If it is a dominant or recessive mutation you will produce more from this mating but it's a backwards step, you wont know if it's a mutation or a trait that you can select for.
I got 12 new king quail today and I did see so some had red up to the bid and others didn't, which makes me think is a trait that you could selected for, I would look for more well coloured males and breed from them and then breed the well coloured males from one pair to the females from the other pair and then find more well coloured birds to add to the gene pool, and after a few years you could breed one line of red fronted back to the other lines and you would have full red fronted king quail.

Dale

[jusdeb]

Thanks Di...