Quail breeds: characteristics with photographs

Keeping and breeding quails is becoming increasingly popular among the population, because from them you can get both eggs and meat, which have dietary and medicinal properties. And this is a really profitable business! Judge for yourself - a female quail is capable of laying eggs in a year with a total weight of 20 times more than the bird itself. By the way, for chickens this ratio is 1:8.

In addition, there are decorative breeds of quail that can decorate your area and serve as interesting and exotic representatives of your home mini-zoo. After all, these birds tolerate captivity well, they are not so difficult to care for, and they are not picky about food.

To the question “Which breed of quail is the best?” There is no definite answer, because it all depends on what you want to get from the bird first of all. All known breeds of quail are divided into egg, meat, universal (meat and egg) and decorative. The table below presents all the main characteristics of the quail breeds most common in Russia. Next, you can find a photo and description.

Egg breeds

In general, everything is now existing quail breeds originate from wild silent or Japanese quail.

Japanese quail

And, of course, the most popular breed if you primarily need quail eggs is the Japanese quail. This breed is the standard color for others bred on its basis. While the body is slightly elongated, the wings and tail are small. The advantage is that the sex of young quails can be determined already from the age of 20 days. Differences in the field are clearly visible in the color of the chest plumage: in males it is brown, and in females it is light gray with black specks. The bill of males is also much darker than that of females.

In addition, males at sexual maturity have a pronounced cloacal gland of a pinkish tint, which looks like a slight thickening and is located above the cloaca. Females do not have this gland, and the surface of the skin around the cloaca is bluish.

Under favorable housing conditions, females can begin laying eggs as early as 35-40 days of age. While in natural conditions, egg laying usually begins when they reach two months of age. In a year, a female can lay more than 300 eggs, although their weight is small, about 9-12 g.

Therefore, chicks can only be hatched using an incubator.

In this breed, the most intensive growth occurs in the first weeks of life. By the age of 40 days, young quails reach the mass of adult birds.

This breed has strong immunity and is undemanding to living conditions. It is often used as a base for obtaining new varieties of quail.

True, special lines have been created in Europe, in which they managed to achieve a 50-70% increase in the live weight of this quail breed. Work in this direction is constantly ongoing.

In addition, there are forms of Japanese quail with colored plumage: Mahurion (golden), Lotus (white) and Turedo (white breast). In apartments Japanese quail often kept as an ornamental bird.

English or British blacks

Based on the name, the breed was produced in England and imported from Hungary in 1971.Color can vary from all shades of brown to black. The eyes are light brown. The beak is dark brown.

The birds are much larger in live weight than Japanese quails, but their egg production is reduced. But still, according to this indicator, they can be placed in 3rd place after the Japanese and Estonian ones. Therefore, they are classified as an egg category, especially since the carcass, due to the dark color of the plumage, does not look very attractive when cut (with a blue tint), which is a defect for not very knowledgeable buyers.

For getting hatching eggs, black quails usually seated in family groups (1 male for two or three females). In the future, birds of this breed react poorly to regrouping (a decrease in egg production occurs), so it is better to keep it as it was originally intended.

The disadvantages of the breed are the rather low fertility rate and the low survival rate of chicks (see the numbers in the table).

English or British whites

This breed of quail was also obtained in England from Japanese quails, by fixing the white mutation. She came to our country the same way as her black relatives, through Hungary, but later in 1987. As the name implies, the color of females is pure snow-white; males occasionally have individual inclusions of black. The eyes are gray-black, and the beak and paws are a delicate light pink shade.

Despite the small body weight, only slightly exceeding the live weight of Japanese quails, the color of the bird's carcass, thanks to its light plumage, is very attractive to buyers. Therefore, the breed is also used for meat.

The breed is very unpretentious in keeping and eats a little feed per bird. Its only drawback can be considered the difficulty in distinguishing sex before reaching 7-8 weeks of age.

Marble

This breed is a mutant form of Japanese quail, bred by specialists from the Timiryazev Academy and the Institute of General Genetics. The color of the plumage ranges from red to light gray with a pattern reminiscent of marbling. This color was obtained as a result of X-ray irradiation of the testes of male quails. All characteristics are completely identical to those of Japanese quails. The only differences are in color.

Tuxedo

This breed was obtained by crossing white and black english quail. The result was birds that were very original in appearance. Quails have a white lower part of the body and also the neck and head. The upper part of the body is covered to varying degrees with brown and brown feathers. According to its characteristics, it usually belongs to the egg or universal type. For detailed digital data, see the table.

Universal or meat-egg breeds

Many quail breeds belonging to this section are classified by a number of authors as both egg and meat. There is no clear division between types of breeds; having one or another breed is a matter of taste for each person.

Manchurian golden

Another name is Golden Phoenix.Quails of the Manchurian golden breed are very popular, primarily for their color. The golden hue is achieved through a beautiful combination of yellow and brown feathers against an overall light background. In terms of the number of eggs hatched, the breed is, of course, inferior to Japanese quails, but the eggs themselves are larger.

The breed is especially popular in Europe, mainly because the young animals gain weight very quickly. In addition, the breed serves as the basis for the creation of large broiler lines when crossed with other meat quails. Breeders manage to obtain female quails of the Manchurian golden breed weighing up to 300 grams or more. And thanks to the light color, the color of the carcass is again attractive to buyers.

Because of their interesting colors, the birds themselves are very popular with children, who are happy to help care for them. Watch a video about quiet quails:

NPO "Complex"

This breed for “internal” use was bred at the Kompleks NPO factory by crossing the marble and meat Pharaoh breeds. The coloring of the birds is absolutely identical to the coloring of Japanese quails, but according to their characteristics they are a typical meat and egg breed. Sometimes you can find marbled birds that resulted from the splitting of this population.

Estonian

Another name for this breed is kiteverse. It was bred on the basis of the Moscow line of Japanese quails, by crossing the English white, Japanese and Pharaoh breeds. Differences in sexual coloration are clearly visible. The main shade is ocher brown with dark stripes.There is a slight hump at the front of the back. Males have a head and neck with a large predominance of dark brown shades, only on the head there are three yellow-white stripes. While females have a light gray-brown head and neck. The male's beak is black and brown, but has a light tip. In females it is brownish-gray. Interestingly, birds of this breed are able to fly.

The Estonian breed has many advantages:

• High survival rate and viability of young animals – up to 98%.
• Unpretentiousness to living conditions and vitality of adult quails.
• High egg fertilization - 92-93%.
• Long lifespan and long egg-laying period.
• They have rapid weight gain in the first weeks of life.

Below you can look at the table - a graph of the growth of live weight of quails of the Estonian breed.

Due to its versatile characteristics and unpretentiousness, the Estonian breed is the most ideal for beginners.

Below you can watch a video that talks about the Estonian breed.

Meat breeds

Of the meat breeds in our country, only two breeds of quail are currently widespread. Although work in this direction is being carried out very intensively, and many broiler quail lines have already been created abroad.

Pharaoh

The breed came to us from the USA and quails are quite large in size - the female weighs more than 300, or even 400 grams. Egg production is low, but the eggs themselves are quite large, up to 18 grams. Birds of this breed are the most demanding in terms of housing and feeding conditions. Some disadvantages are considered to be the dark color of the plumage, which can impair the presentation of the carcasses.

The advantage is the rapid growth of young animals; by five weeks, the live weight of quails reaches 140-150 grams.

The weight gain tables show this process well by day.

Texas white

It is also called the Texas Pharaoh because it was bred and used mainly in the state of Texas, USA. It was brought to Russia several years ago and began to enjoy great popularity as a meat breed. In addition to the large weight (up to 450-500 g) that female quails reach, the white color is also very attractive for sale.

Advantage Texas white quail is also that the amount of feed that these giant quails consume is the same as that of other breeds. Moreover, the young animals gain weight very quickly, just like Pharaoh.

The breed is very calm, which is also a disadvantage for breeding, since no more than two females should be placed per male.

The disadvantage is also the low fertilization of eggs and insufficiently high hatchability - see the numbers in the table.

Decorative breeds

There are quite a few decorative quail breeds, but in our country the most popular are the following:

• Painted or Chinese – just look at the photo of a quail of this breed and it becomes clear why it is considered an ornamental breed. The color ranges from blue-blue, red to yellowish. The birds are small, 11-14 cm long. The female usually incubates 5-7 eggs for 15-17 days. It is advisable to keep birds not in pairs, but in small groups. Their voice is pleasant. They mostly run on the ground rather than fly.
  
• Virgin – quails are medium-sized, reaching 22 cm in length. The color is variegated brown-red.The character is flexible, they reproduce easily in captivity. A female can incubate a clutch of 14 eggs for 24 days. These quails are often kept not only for decorative purposes, but also for meat.
  
• Californian - very decorative representatives of the crested group of quails. The clutch consists of 9-15 eggs, which are incubated for about 20 days. These quails are very thermophilic and cannot withstand temperatures below +10°C. Therefore, they need insulated poultry houses for the winter.
  

Once you get to know all the main quail breeds, you can choose the one that best suits your needs and interests.

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