Description
Quail have a lot of advantages over chickens for efficient production of eggs and meat. They have a greatly accelerated life cycle and need much less space per bird. As with my other poultry, I work to acquire and maintain unique genetics in my quail.
Jumbo Quail
If you are primarily wanting to produce food, the jumbos are what you want. Large and vigorous, they excel at producing gourmet quality eggs and meat. Most people that try quail eggs agree that they taste even better than chicken eggs. They are reputed to be healthier also, but I don’t know if those claims are accurate.
- Jumbo Pharoah – These are colored like a wild coturnix, with additional brown genes. At maturity, they can weigh close to a pound and their eggs are large to extra large (for a quail). This line originated from James Marie Farm, by way of Southwest Gamebirds.
- Jumbo Egyptian – These have genes for “rouge”, making them much lighter in color than the Pharoah. This line is from Myshire, a well known quail farm in Ohio. The rouge gene is sexlinked and by crossing this line with the JMF Jumbos, I will be able to sex the chicks at hatch and also expect improve production from these hybrids.
- Jumbo Sexlinks – If you are looking for the best birds for food production, eggs or meat, these are what you want. Because they are sexlinked, you can buy all females, if you want to maximize egg production, or all males, if you want low cost chicks for meat production. For most quail raisers and breeders, there is little need for the pure lines listed above, these hybrids will be all you will need. The hybrid vigor will last for generations compared to the pure lines.
Celedon
I love blue eggs from my chickens and ducks, so when I heard that blue eggs in quail were a thing, I had to get some. These are very typical sized (not jumbo) and their eggs are smaller than the typical egg from the jumbo lines also. I am maintaining these as they are quite rare still, and will be working to improve their size and vigor by crossing them to the jumbo lines.