Breeding myth
I see alot of posts and comments on the quail pages especially saying they need outside blood to improve their line. While it is technically possible to do that, likely, you need to breed your line even more. Let me give you an example.
When I started with Jumbo quail, I got them from a guy locally who got them from a guy in Kentucky who got them from a guy. Basically, they were not an established line. I also got into quail to “practice” breeding for my large fowl chickens. To learn more in a short amount of time to move my chicken lines along faster. This is what happened…I am reproducing the quail and I found these darker roosters that I really liked. They were still pharaoh but had more black on them, I thought they were neat looking so I started making them my selected roosters. My thinking was that I would create a family of these dark quail. However, that didn’t happen, the hens never would come out dark, instead Egyptian popped out! I started getting Egyptian hens. Now some of you are going to say I have mutts and this shouldn’t happen. Technically you are right, if I hade bought from a reputable breeder who had been working the line for generations, say the JMF line, then the offspring would be consistent. I didn’t so I have what I have which was/is a great learning experience which is what I was after anyway. My selections for the quail were larger birds and consistent coloring, the problem was the pesky Egyptian kept popping up. I did some homework, talked with a quail genetics mentor, and Egyptian is a recessive gene, and to exhibit the phenotype, the bird must have 2 copies, therefore I have a split roo in my flock messing me up. Now I have to hatch by cage and separate hatches to find the problem. I did after a few months and now I have a pharaoh line without any Egyptian. Meanwhile, I took the split roos and put with my Egyptian hens and kept hatching until I got some Egyptian Roosters and now I have a breeding stock of them too!
The moral of this story is that by tightening the genetics, I forced the recessives out of hiding. Now that I know my pharaohs have no more hidden flaws, I can concentrate on the important things like markings, frame and size. Do the same on the Egyptians also. And if that wasn’t enough, I added Celadons and I am test breeding them to make sure of my breeders and then to build that flock. If you put that into perceptive of my breeders, I have roughly 700 breeders plus grow outs plus brooders. I have more cages ordered and will have over 1000 breeders by fall shipping season. The next cage will have an Egyptian rooster over pharaoh hens which will create auto sexing birds which fits my business profile nicely. I will not have to wait for 16 days to sell females. I have an outlet for all my males already.
All this translates to my chickens that when something pops out that shouldn’t, I know that I have found recessive genes that need to be addressed in one way or the other. Either embrace them like the Egyptian genetics or breed them out. You cannot do that without knowledge and that comes from studying and mentors. This is how all strains or varieties have been made of birds. It isn’t a novelty.