How could you tell how inbred a bird is? They’re all stupid.

– My grandma

Clan or rotational breeding ensures genetic diversity by transferring female quails (or any animal, essentially) from their parent Clan to another Clan while the males stay within their respective groups. This keeps inbreeding low while also producing replacement hens. After a certain number of years, inbreeding depression would still be an issue, but rotation through unrelated or distantly related populations of males would help. This also depends on the initial genetic diversity that the clans began with.

The Why

• Cost Efficiency: Incubating eggs produced onsite is much cheaper than buying eggs. The cost is only the electricity. Hatching eggs are still quite affordable at $1.25 per egg.
• Long-Term Sustainability: If my regular seller of quail eggs stops selling, I can still produce replacement hens. For chickens, if I want to replace a rooster, I can typically source one locally for free or nearly free, but quail are more difficult. Not as many people keep them. Quail also have a much shorter lifespan than chickens at 2 years compared to a chicken’s 8-15.
• Genetic Diversity and Inbreeding Prevention: Clan breeding combats the inbreeding issues by introducing fresh genetic material through female transfers.
• Disease Management: Introducing new birds carries the risk of introducing diseases, although I’m not sure what specific risk a freshly hatched chick would present compared to a grown bird.
• Breeding Goals: I can set goals (tameness, size, egg production) and retain chicks based on this. This wouldn’t be as easy if I continually bought hatching eggs to replenish the quail numbers.

Setting it Up

Begin with a genetically diverse founding population for each Clan. Source each from a different seller. For example: Clan 1 from Meyer, Clan 2 from Myshire, Clan 3 from Stormbergs, and Clan 4 from Murray McMurray.

Each Clan would be housed separately to prevent a mixture before producing replacement hens. Chicks would be hatched from eggs harvested from each Clan and brooded separately until the sex of each quail was clear. Alternatively, you could incubate one clutch from Clan 1 and the next clutch from Clan 2, etc, to prevent the extra costs of needing many brooders. Each quail would be assessed for health and potential contribution towards breeding goals. Roosters would be returned to the Clan of birth, and hens would be moved to the subsequent Clan.

Drawbacks

• Record Keeping: Tracking would be extremely important for the duration of the Clan setup.
• Space and Housing Requirements: You would need separate cages or aviaries per Clan rather than one large group.
• Eventual Inbreeding: After several years, the genetic drift from breeding clan to Clan will result in inbreeding. New genetics would eventually need to be introduced to prevent typical issues of inbreeding depression.

My Plan

I’ve kept quail in a large aviary, but wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. I originally wanted to maintain natural behavior in the quail and provide them something as close to natural environments as possible. Possibly dueing to their relative recent domestication, but they’re extremely flightly and their response to a perceived threat is to fly straight up. That’s fine when there isn’t a roof directly over their heads… Going forward, an aviary will not be used, and instead using cages with an egg rollout collection method.

This video demonstrates a likely plan:

Some considerations I would have for this set up is placement. For a wire cage suspended above the ground, the birds would be exposed to more of the elements than they would if they were on the ground in an aviary type set up. Wind, heat, and cold would all be important exposure factors to consider while picking the site.

Building more aviaries may also be possible if one breeds specifically towards tameness to reduce the flighty behavior of the quail. This would also allow for a higher starting population as compared to cages.

Clan 1 would be hatched out and placed into whichever housing solution I decide on. Then Clan 2, then Clan 3, then Clan 4. If one just wants eggs, no replenishment breeding would need to take place until year 1. Otherwise, hatching would depend on the rate of quail consumption and the need for replacements. The hatched offspring could be raised solely for consumption to reduce the need for tracking if the rotation only happens yearly to replenish breeding stock.

The inbreeding coefficient could potentially be calculated using Python and the many data addons available for that language. But I’m not doing that right now, because I’m tired and I hate computers.

If the clans are sufficiently far away, they could also offer a protection against disease outbreak. If one clan becomes sick, let’s say with Avian Flu, then I’d only need to cull those specific animals instead of the entire group.