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The small golden bird, which recently appeared on the farmsteads of poultry farmers, quickly won the hearts of quail lovers and farmers who raise this type of bird for dietary meat and eggs.
It is quite difficult to say which direction Manchurian quails belong to, since their body weight is small compared to Texas broiler quails, but greater than that of egg-bearing quail breeds. Manchurians mature on par with broiler breeds.
Egg production is lower than that of the Japanese quail, but the eggs are very large relative to the size of the Manchurian.
Many quail breeders classify Manchurian quail as a meat breed, but some believe that it is an egg-meat breed. breed. Be that as it may, the high yield of production per 1 feed unit and the decorative appearance of the Manchurian quail have made it popular not only among amateur poultry farmers, but also among farmers engaged in industrial production.
Description of Manchurian golden quails
The photo shows an absolutely wonderful color of a golden Manchurian quail with a clearly defined mask on the male.Such birds are very good as decorative birds, as they look no worse than any exotic bird, but do not require as much attention as exotic birds.
Typically, the color of Manchurian quails is duller, although they have a very pleasant yellow color.
Manchurians are relatively small birds, although their weight is twice that of their wild ancestor. Females are larger than males, but even a female can hardly be fattened to more than 200 g. They are inferior even to the Pharaoh meat breed, bred in America, weighing up to 300 g.
Compared to the Texas broiler quail breed, Manchurian quails look small. The weight of a Texan can reach almost half a kilogram. Moreover, it is at Texas quail, which are also called white pharaohs, the male is larger than the female and weighs 470 g, while the female is “only” 360 g.
If you cross Manchurian quails with Texas quails, you can get this charming cross. Although such crossbreeding is usually carried out in order to increase meat yield.
It is because of the crossing of Texans with Manchus that today there are serious battles between quail breeders: whether to consider the Golden Phoenix quail as a separate breed of quail, a cross with the White Pharaoh, or only a branch of the Manchurian Golden of French selection. The weight of the Golden Phoenix is almost equal to the weight of the white Pharaoh, but in the plumage, completely identical to the color of the Manchurian Golden, nothing indicates an admixture of another breed. At the same time, phoenixes do not produce splitting in their offspring, which indicates the genetic monolithic nature of the population.
Perhaps this is the option when the breed was bred from the parent breed solely by selection for the desired qualities without the infusion of other blood.Such cases are known in other domesticated species. For example, the German Giant rabbit is identical in blood to the Belgian Giant, but is registered as a separate breed. By the way, many among rabbit breeders also disagree with the existence of a separate breed of the German Giant.
Among horses, the Haflinger and Avelin breeds have absolutely identical origins and a common area of origin, but today they are registered as two different breeds. Among the dogs, one can recall the East European Shepherd, bred in the USSR from a German dog without the addition of other blood, but through strict selection for the needs of the armed forces and internal troops.
Therefore, the option of breeding a large variety of Manchurian quail in France is quite realistic, but whether it is considered a breed is still a matter of taste.
The original breed, that is, the Manchu, in addition to rapid maturation (2 months), is also distinguished by good egg production, producing up to 250 eggs per year. Egg weight is about 17 g.
However, reviews from farmers containing meat and meat and egg quail characterize both branches of golden quail on the positive side.
Industrial content
In addition to keeping Manchurians as pets with a free life in an aviary, there is the raising of Manchurian quails for meat and eggs while keeping the birds in cages on the farm.
This is similar to keeping chickens for meat and eggs. The density of quails or chickens per 1 m² depends on the size of the bird. If egg hens usually have a density of 5-6 heads per meter, then the number of quails can exceed 50 heads. Since the Manchurian quail is somewhat larger than its counterparts belonging to egg-bearing breeds, it is recommended to limit the number of golden Manchurians to 50 heads per m².The height of the cage should not greatly exceed the size of the bird itself.
A big advantage of Manchurian golden quails is the attractiveness of the quail carcass for the buyer. This is explained by the fact that the stumps of light feathers are not noticeable on the skin of a plucked carcass. And light meat does not scare off inexperienced buyers. In dark breeds of quail, after plucking, black stumps and blackness around the abdomen are visible, which usually does not add appetite.
When feeding quails for meat, there is no need to separate males from females, and in the photo above it is easy to see that males with a dark mask on their heads are kept together with females.
To obtain edible quail eggs, females are kept separately from males and fed with feed for laying hens. The rest of their conditions of detention do not differ from the maintenance of meat livestock.
But for breeding, the bird needs to create more favorable conditions with more living space.
Breeding quails of the Manchurian golden breed
At quail breeding For high-quality fertilization, one male is assigned 3-4 females, seating the families in separate cells, since the males can sort things out among themselves. The hatching instinct of Manchus is poorly developed, so incubation of eggs is recommended.
The Manchurian golden reaches sexual maturity at 2 months and maintains high egg production and egg fertility for up to 8 months. Birds of this age are selected for breeding.
For livestock kept in fattening and egg cages, containers filled with sand and ash can be placed once a week. The broodstock containers can be left in the cages permanently. Given the division of families into separate cells, containers will have to be placed in each.
How to determine the sex of quails
Fortunately for quail breeders, the sexual dimorphism of Manchurian goldens is well expressed in the color of the plumage and can be determined from as early as a month. With colored breeds, where the female does not differ in color from the male, the sex of the bird can only be recognized after puberty.
There are several ways to understand where the quail is and where the quail is. It is believed that Manchurian goldens differ in gender from 3 weeks.
If you have time and the bird population is small, you can watch quails. Males will be distinguished from quails by periodic sharp screams, which you will never hear from a quail. If you don’t have time, and the livestock is younger than 2 months, you can try to find out the sex by color.
Manchus are distinguished by the color of their chest and head.
The female has a mottled chest and no mask on her head. Her head is almost the same color as her body.
The male can be recognized by his even, without speckles, chest plumage that is more red than that of a quail and a mask on his head. The mask can be brown, light ocher or rust-colored.
But males have one caveat. Very often in quails there is a situation where, due to underdeveloped testes, the bird has the color of a male, but is not able to fertilize females.
How to distinguish a male suitable for breeding
The same method is suitable for guaranteed sex determination in an adult bird.Quails are distinguished from quails by the appearance of the cloaca and the presence of a subtail gland, which is absent in the female. In quail, the cloaca is pink and between the anus and the tail, almost on the border with the cloaca, there is an oblong protrusion, when pressed, a white foamy liquid appears on it. The female does not have such a protrusion.
A quail, identified by its plumage as a male, but not having a sub-tail gland at two months, is not suitable for breeding, since its testes are underdeveloped. Such quail are discarded for meat.
The owner of a quail farm quite impartially expresses his opinion about the Manchurian golden quail breed:
Perhaps the owner of this farm is right about the children's interest in golden Manchurian quails. But then the charming golden quails will have to be hidden from children.
Reviews from owners of golden Manchurian quails
Conclusion
As a meat and partly egg breed, Manchurian goldens have proven themselves very well among quail breeders. Taking into account the French line of these quails, everyone can choose quails to suit their taste: either large ones for meat, or smaller ones for meat and edible eggs. However, the large line also lays well, producing simply gigantic eggs on broiler feed.
