Texas A&M, or Jumbo Brown Coturnix?

[HansenHomestead]

Hey everyone sorry I haven't posted in a while. Lots of things going on, had 4 litters of rabbits born, and hatched my first batch of quail eggs!

So we have now have about 27 Coturnix Quail. This batch I just hatched started with 15 eggs. 4 of those were unfertile, and 2 died about day 10. Hatch day came around, and all eggs did hatch, but 2 died shortly after. Leaving me with 7 baby quail with 1 still in question. Broke a toe while hatching. Over all I am very happy with the say it turned out.

Now to what I am really posting about! I love my Coturnix, but wanted to extend my breed a little. At first we really wanted Bobwhites, but they take FAR too long to mature to a butch weight, and forever to start laying. We want ours to be efficient, fast, and a decent weight. So I looked at Texas A&M's. While they average the pretty much the same as mine now, they are jumbos so they would be about 12-14 ounces. The only thing I did not like is that since they are all white you have to sex the old fashioned way. "Flip em, look for foam," but that only happens at sexual maturity. Which means to sex them I would have to weight a week, or 2 over their butcher weight date. I know it's not a huge deal, but I want the quail laying/hatching/butchering to run like clockwork. So I also looked into Jumbo Brown Coturnix. They average out at 14 ounces, and can go from hatch to table in 8-10 weeks. So there is where it gets tricky for me. I looked at the weight vs age of the Jumbos, compared to the weight/age of my quail. Again Jumbos reach 12-14 ounce at 8-10 weeks. I also did some research on Regular Coturnix. They usually get to about 3-5 ounces. I weighted my quail who are about 9-10 weeks old, and they are at 6.8 ounces. Here is where I am hoping you guys can help me. With those weights, and ages I am guessing that my quail are just the regular Coturnix, and NOT Jumbos. I want to be sure that mine are in fact not of the Jumbo kind, because I do not want to spend $36 on something I already have, haha.

What do you guys think?

 

[Dood]

I think you are confusing quail colours (Texas A&M = ANY white quail and Jumbo Brown = ANY brown quail) with actual breeds

These two use to be pure varieties/strains/bloodlines, but both programs ended long ago and very few people are keeping the bloodlines pure and breeding towards the same weight goals - James Marie and Stellar farms are two exceptions and I believe the claims make about their quail.

Some people have issues of mixing T A&M with other colours as they tend to get picked on, and once those white feathers get red on them even the non aggressive birds in the flock just can't resist pecking at it :x

I sell a lot of hens for egg laying and usually only get to eat the males so the fact I must wait for sexual maturity is a PITA for me as I'd rather sell them at 4 weeks for space reasons. Because of this I don't breed too many whites, (or reds/Tibetan, or blonde) but people really like the different colours so I have kept these 3 colour genes in my flock

Lots of people claim to have jumbo quail or pure Texas A&M and their birds are over 14oz but in my experience very few are

To be sure you are getting 14+ oz birds ask the seller how much his eggs weight, the average should be over 14 grams - if they are smaller but he still says his birds are "jumbo" then he's out and out LYING! and look for somone else.

It's not a guarantee you'll get jumbos but it's a trick to see if the source is reliable short of driving there with a scale and weighing the breeders birds yourself.

Diet also plays a big roll in quail growth and chicks raised on less than 30% protein won't reach their full potential

 

[HansenHomestead]

You're right. My mind was slipping a bit, lol. Yes, I do know that T A&M's are in fact Coturnix, just a different color. At first I did want them for the break in color, but changed my mind. If we had got the T A&M's they would be in a different enclosure, but since we're not, no big deal.

As for the quail I have now I am still trying to figure out if they are Jumbos, or not, lol. I just weighted some of my eggs, and they averaged you high being 14g, low being 10g.

If we do decide to different eggs, if mine are not Jumbos I have been looking at getting them from purelypoultry.com

The person we got the ones we have now from did not say they were jumbos, rather just said I have some Coturnix quail chicks for sale, and I have to say he been extremely helpful from the start!

Our current cage is two 5ftx4ft cages stacked on top of each other with 9 hens, and 1 rooster in each of them. They have 14hrs of light, and are fed Purina Gamebird Starter 30% protein. Which I do have to say since we made the feed switch the girls have been laying a lot more. It went from maybe 3-6 eggs every other day, to 6-9 eggs daily!