The Colours of Quail Part 4 - The Tuxedo

[@seansyw143]

Hi Sue! Thank you so much for your hard work. Thanks to you I have my first group of coturnix quail, and am hoping to add some tuxedos to the group. Your videos are very informative and a show a beautiful way of raising happy quail.

[@Pavlovafowl]

Hi Sean You are so welcome and thank you for your lovely comments, they are very much appreciated. Quail need good people who can empathise with them and realise that they too need to be in a congenial environment to thrive. I am so happy that you have started your great quail adventure and hope you too will show others, in writing and/or film that there are alternative ways to keep quail. All the very best from rainy Normandie and keep me posted as to how things progress, Sue

[@quailjailss]

Aren’t poultry genetics so interesting?! I love playing around with chicken color genetics. I love how natural your quail enclosures are. I understand why people do it, but I hate when they raise quail on wire… your animals are so lucky to have you! I know you try to make them as happy as possible. It shows! Especially with seeing your quail hens raise chicks. How many quail hens have you had go broody and hatch eggs now?

[@Pavlovafowl]

Hi there, good to hear from you! Poultry genetics is fascinating and the colours and plumage variations particularly so, that's why I can't understand why there is so little history or information about these quail colours and patterns. I would be incredibly proud of myself if I had created such beauty. That said, sometimes people like to keep things to themselves, like Sir John Sebright! I just like to see my quail as free as possible without any danger from predators. I've had 3 quail sit and hatch eggs but having read one of the very few field studies: Cornell University Poultry Science Department and studied in captivity in Ithaca New York (Orcutt and Orcutt, 1976), I'd have to enlarge my enclosures significantly or make a completely separate safe breeding area in the season to get more sitters. I know my bonded pair actively, vociferously and physically, discouraged others pairs in the flock from sitting, so I believe as with the Orcutt study you can only get one breeding and sitting pair at a time. Even when I've had adjoined greenhouses to give them double the space, the first bonded pair have seen both territories as their own. That is why sometimes I have resorted back to using hens to hatch the eggs. There is so much to learn, which is great! All the very best from Normandie, Sue xx

[@avianaviator1570]

Such beautiful birds! Thanks for sharing them!

[@Pavlovafowl]

Thank you and you are so welcome! All the very best from Normandie, Sue

[@oliverwilkinson4367]

A lovely film ❤

[@Pavlovafowl]

Thank you! All the very best, Sue

[@krixxset2214]

These are balls with beaks!!! They are pecking around happily!! They are GRAZING AROUND! OH! An egg appeared!! :O :D

[@lazchurchyard1229]

I like to call them "ambulate potatoes". 🤭

[@Pavlovafowl]

Aww, they have me trained. They cry out if they don't get enough mealworms and now I have one that pulls at my socks and trouser leg if I walk anywhere near the mealworm boxes. Mine also have designated nesting areas, which they made themselves but I get your descriptions! Thank you both for your comments, they are very much appreciated. All the very best, Sue

[@chickensquailandbirds5650]

Hello. I just recently found your channel and I have to say, I love how you treat your quail and how much space they have they are lucky. Sadly many people that own quail just cram them in wire bottom cages and kill them at 8 weeks old :(, But yours get to live a full natural life and raise their own babies. I own Button Quail and they live in a large cage in my garage. I love your quail by the way they are super cute and pretty :)

[@Pavlovafowl]

Hi there and thank you so much for your kind comments, they are very much appreciated! It sounds like you are a great advocate for button quail, I find it horrendous that people so little appreciate these lovely birds that here in France, pet shops use them as 'cleaners' and they spend their lives living in tiny song bird cages, on the cage floors, cleaning up spilled seeds. I've subbed to your channel in the hope that you can post some videos and show people your set up. All the very best from sunny Normandie, Sue xx

[@chickensquailandbirds5650]

@@Pavlovafowl Thanks for subbing even though I don't have any videos yet. It might be a while before I can post videos but I can describe the cage setup for now. I bought it online last year it is called a guinea pig condominium cage and it has a plexiglas front, mesh sides and top, 3 floors, a seesaw that they actually use, and some hiding/nesting places. I use pine shavings as the bedding , I keep their food and oyster shells on the second floor and on the bottom floor I added fake plants, rocks, a dust bath, and a basket to lay in. I wanted it to look nice and to be kind of a natural environment for them. Sadly yes buttons don't get the proper care sometimes but Coturnix get abused way more often it seems. Many people consider coturnix a "meat bird" even though they only weigh like 10 ounces when fully grown so there is really no point in killing them. These people cram them in small wire bottom cages where they can barley move and have no stimulation and they get killed at only 8 weeks old even though they can live well over 5 years naturally. I try to give my quail and chickens the best life possible and it looks like you do the same thing.

[@ScaryFear]

Hello. I just watched all four of your videos. I am new to quail this year. I really like your video because you show the quail and explain things so nicely. I ordered some celedon eggs on ebay that were for tuxedo quails. But looks like I got some whites, pharo and not sure. I'm still trying to learn all the colors. You mentioned blue and silver. I'd love to see you make a video on those some day. Thanks for the info. Happy New Year. Dec 30 2024.

[@feritito1595]

Betapa cantiknya

[@Pavlovafowl]

Terima kasih! Doa terbaik dari Normandie, Sue

[@earlhanger6509]

I have a number of silver tuxedos. I have just hatched six more hoping I get a female so far I have just had males.

[@Pavlovafowl]

Silver Tuxedos are so beautiful, you are very lucky, they are incredibly rare around here. Hope you had some more hatches! All the very best from sunny Normandie, Sue xx

[@PNWhiker-r1v]

In your experience have you ever had female quail sing in the morning. One or two my quail start chirping extremely loud in the morning. It only lasts for about 10 seconds. What does this mean? I am 100% sure they are females

[@Pavlovafowl]

Hi there, that is very interesting because originally there was a strain of quail in Japan that were bred as song birds but they were wiped out in WW2. However, I have found many of my quail do sing quite sweetly, mostly the females, whereas the males make more strident or raucous sounds, which are involved in courtship. The females however, often seem to have a wider range of vocalisations, particularly when they have chicks, I have one video with my mother quail 'barking' and 'whistling' at her chicks when she thinks they are getting cold and need to be under her. Perhaps the singing quail are not as 'extinct' as was previously thought - let's hope, as they have such wonderful calming voices when chirping. All the very best, Sue

[@samerbako2358]

Hi Sue and Andy I would like to ask you a question can you cross breed quails like coturnix and tuxedo quails together

[@Pavlovafowl]

Hi there, there is a confusion in many countries about the different colours of coturnix, basically I believe because there is so little written about the history of how the different plumage shades and patterns came into being and it doesn't help that 'coturnix' just means 'quail'! Often therefore, these different colours of coturnix are thought of and referred to, as different species but they are in fact all 'coturnix japonica' aka Japanese quail, so you can breed them together and get some amazing different colours and markings. In fact for the best quality therapeutic eggs for the treatment of allergy and respiratory conditions, the breeders in the 1960s cross bred their Japanese quail with wild quail aka coturnix coturnix and if you are interested in this aspect of breeding coturnix, I wrote about it here: holistic-hen.blogspot.com/2016/01/organically-raised-quail-therapeutic.html#.Vpfp9V5VKlM Hope this helps and Good Luck with producing some amazing quail, Sue and Andy xx

[@samerbako2358]

@@Pavlovafowl thank you very much for the advice and I hope to raise a flock of quail in the future

[@fsvaldezgd1362]

Hello, are these quails the same breed but different phenotypic color? Also, are they Japanese quail?

[@Pavlovafowl]

Yes and yes. The sad thing is there is little or no information/documentation on how these variations in colour first came into being. I think if I had created such beauty, I would want to have noted it down. However, as with the different breeds of chickens, such as the Sebright, for example, maybe people like to keep secrets - who knows. All the very best from rainy Normandie, Sue