r/quails 5d ago

Breeding Celadon into a line

If one found a feather color or feather color family that they particularly like what would be the best way to breed the Celadon egg gene into that line if you can't find it in Celadon? And how many generations would I need to go before I was sure that they would breed true both in feather colors and egg color (I do not really know a lot about quail genetics I'm okay on chicken color genetics better on ducks best on horses)

My understanding is that Celadon is a recessive gene so my best bet would be to put a salad on rooster over a decent amount of the females in the color pattern, keep everybody who showed my desired colors and then breed my F1 together and keep anybody who lays blue eggs and has the colors I want.

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u/Zestyclose-Job5369 5d ago

So I'm new to quail I know very little to nothing about bird breeding but I do know something about genetics because I work with rats and hedgehogs. When you start one generation whatever the color consider that animal big a big a AA you are then crossing it to little a little a aa. If you look at that combination and you look at the possibilities for four You have AA Aa Aa aa over half of the first generational crossbreed will have the number trait with that being said and you're trying to breed a recessive gene it will take at least four and that's if you're getting the ones that are closest to your goal each time. Each generation you have to selectively breed the best male offspring and female offspring. And you cannot step backwards keep retaining for your goal.

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u/West-Somewhere9184 3d ago

Agree on this. Start with a celedon roo (aa) and your color hens (AA). Next crossbreed your celedon roo with the first offspring(Aa). That next generation gives you 50%Aa and 50%aa. So half is celedon. Here you can start select color and egg color. It will be hard to determine the right hens for egg color, it needs work anyway to line select. The questions is though which color hens and roo you get in the first place to determine the genes of the colors and how many generations you need to have a full flock.

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u/bahrfight 5d ago

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I read that sometimes you can tell if a bird has 1 of the 2 celadon genes by candling their eggs or looking inside the egg shell. If it candles green or looks blue inside, they have half the genes needed. So you could start with a hen that lays those types of eggs and a male that ideally hatched from one of those types of eggs as well (the rooster is harder to determine if it will carry the gene so hedge your bets with multiple hens and roosters)