Quail breeds compared — which one suits your plan
Japanese, Marbled, English White and Black, Tuxedo, Manchurian, Estonian and Pharaoh — weight, egg numbers, onset of lay and the difference that counts day to day.
There are around forty breeds, colour varieties and lines of the domestic quail worldwide. In the end three questions decide the choice: do you want eggs, meat or both, can the birds be sexed early, and what does the carcass look like. If you only want eggs, the light breeds serve you best; if you want to use the surplus males, you need weight — and you pay for it in feed.
The light laying breeds
Japanese (grey). The breed for egg production. Wild-coloured, grey-brown plumage, bred for laying performance alone: around 300 eggs a year at an egg weight of 9 to 10 grams. They start laying as early as five weeks — sooner than all the others. Their weight has stayed almost at the level of their wild ancestors: hens 150 to 160 grams, males 130 to 140.
Marbled. Performance and weight as the Japanese, only lighter: a smoky pale grey with faintly marked feathers. The colour variety arose from a mutation and is recessive to the wild colour — cross marbled birds with wild-coloured ones and the chicks come out wild-coloured.
Their advantage shows after slaughter: no dark feather stubs, the carcass looks cleaner. Their drawback comes before that — the sex cannot be told before sexual maturity.
Both share the downside of the light build: the carcass weighs only 90 to 100 grams. If you want to use hens after the laying period or surplus males, that does not give you much.
The dual-purpose breeds
English White. Hens 160 to 180 grams, males 140 to 150, about 280 eggs a year at 10 to 11 grams, laying from about six weeks. White plumage without markings, the odd black feather occurs. A clean carcass averaging 100 grams.
English Black. Weight and onset of lay as in the whites, the plumage black without visible markings. Two drawbacks: the sex cannot be told early, and dark stubs remain after plucking.
Tuxedo. Bred from crossing English White and Black — black back, white breast. The markings are kept in further breeding, and the breed is recognised in its own right. Performance as in the parent breeds.
Manchurian Golden. Brown and yellow feathers with markings, sexual maturity at about six weeks or a little later, 260 to 270 eggs a year at 10 to 11 grams.
Estonian. The only breed officially recognised in the Soviet Union, created from the Japanese with English White crossed in. The aim was a heavier bird with high laying performance, and it worked: hens 200 to 220 grams, males 180 to 200, with 280 to 300 eggs a year at 10 to 11 grams.
The price is in the figures as well: Estonians eat more. About 30 to 32 grams a day against 26 to 28 grams in the other breeds — over a year and a hundred birds that is a noticeable item.
The meat breed
Pharaoh. The best-known meat breed, developed in California, wild-coloured. Hens reach 300 grams, males 250. They lay around 240 eggs a year, but at 12 to 13 grams the heaviest ones. Laying starts only at about seven weeks, feed consumption is 32 to 35 grams a day.
The actual purpose shows in fattening: males can be brought to a carcass of over 120 grams by the fourth week. Meat lines from France, Finland and other countries also go under the name Pharaoh today; their performance figures lie close together.
The figures side by side
| Breed | Hen | Male | Eggs/year | Egg weight | Onset of lay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese | 150–160 g | 130–140 g | ~300 | 9–10 g | 5 weeks |
| Marbled | 150–160 g | 130–140 g | ~300 | 9–10 g | 5 weeks |
| English White | 160–180 g | 140–150 g | ~280 | 10–11 g | 6 weeks |
| English Black | 160–180 g | 140–150 g | as whites | 10–11 g | 6 weeks |
| Manchurian | — | — | 260–270 | 10–11 g | from 6 weeks |
| Estonian | 200–220 g | 180–200 g | 280–300 | 10–11 g | 6 weeks |
| Pharaoh | ~300 g | ~250 g | ~240 | 12–13 g | ~7 weeks |
Two gaps in the table are deliberate. For the English Black the specialist literature gives no egg figure of its own but rates them as equivalent to the whites; for the Manchurians a weight is missing. A figure we cannot support is better left out entirely.
What really decides the choice
The egg figures range between 240 and 300 — that sounds like a lot and is the smallest of the three questions for a household flock. The other two matter more.
Can you sort them early? Wild-coloured birds — Japanese, Manchurian, Pharaoh — can be told apart by the breast as soon as the juvenile plumage is in. White, black and marbled birds cannot; there the sex shows only at sexual maturity. If you do not want to feed males through, choose accordingly.
What happens to the surplus birds? With the light breeds, 90 to 100 grams of carcass remain — hardly worth the plucking. If you want to use the males and the spent hens, Estonians or a meat line serve you better, and you accept the higher feed consumption for it.
A breed is not a purchase but upkeep
Quail have a short incubation and reach sexual maturity early — up to five generations are possible in a year. That is an advantage and a danger: without selection in the offspring, a flock loses its qualities just as fast. Live weight goes first, then laying performance, then egg weight.
Two moves work against that. Only birds with the weight typical for the breed are kept for breeding — and, if you record individually, the hens with the best performance. And birds from another holding come in regularly: even with the best selection, breeding in a closed circle leads to inbreeding over the years, and that costs more than the purchase would have.
The figures and reference values in this article follow the specialist literature on quail keeping — Stele, Osmanyan, Afanasyev, "Egg production in poultry keeping", chapter on the technology of quail egg production.