Aussie Finch Forum

hi just started on here and would like to introduce myself. started bird keeping with japanese/italian quail then moved onto chinese pained/button quail and colour breeding as well as getting them to sit and raise young. currently breed javas, zebs, bengs and pheasants ( temmincks tragopan. hinalyan monal and yellow golden pheasant.) would eventually like to get into gouldians and parrot finch too. hoping to find some good advice on here and some info on colours and genetics. loved the book the red canary by tim birkhead, would recommend it to anyone interested in bird breeding. also homing by jon day is about pigeons but really interesting the concept of a home.

Welcome to the Forum.
Do you keep your birds indoors or out? Or switch during the seasons?
I persume what you call chinese painted/button quail are what we call King quail?
I have been dabbling in the colours of them for many years, never had much trouble getting them to sit and raise chicks. Though 1st timers can be a bit hopeless sometimes, and full clutches do not make it always.

New to this forum. I keep waxbills in the uk so far this year I managed to breed yellow winged Phillis and red billed fire finches.
I’m hoping to pick up any advice or your experience with similar birds.
Regards Andy

Hi sorry for the really slow reply. Yes chinese/button are also known as the king quail. The one mutation I've had trouble with were the "dilutes" (red eyes but not albino, not sure if you have them there?)
My birds are out door with a shelter. Finches get locked in during snow or real cold. Pheasant have access to outside every day of the year. Quail are the same outdoor access, unless they live with the finches in the aviary, then it's no good trying different regimes.

The King quail dilutes I breed are a very pale cinnimon/gray shade without red eyes. Some here are breeding whites with black eyes.
Currently trying to increase the reds - very red cinnimon - darker like the normal - but not normal.
It's all shades, like the white silver and the gray silver.
Techinically I supposes they are all lights and darks.

http://www.zebrafinch.com/NewButtonquai ... Quail.html
this link shows the type of dilutes we have over here. are the reds what we would call red breasted/darth vaders? a lethal gene if 2 are paired together?

My reds look like normal cinnamons - accept that the part that is cinnamon is much redder than normal - not as red as the males chest - but redder than a normal quail. Interestingly the hens are redder all over than the red backs of the cocks. But as my dilute/pastel cinnamon/gray birds and these came from the same crossbreeding lines. (which I have been running with my mother for about 25yrs now) The chicks come out pale more often than bright - so it would appear the red is recessive to the pale. Which would seem odd.
Your red fronted is the closest I can find - but mine are not that dark, and the cock does not have a light head, or lose his deep gray. It is only the "normal" part of the bird that is affected, hence the hen being more obvious.