Fee gene inheritance?

[shrimpsilkies]

I decided to breed a wildtype pharaoh rooster from a mixed color MyShire hatch over a very interesting “dilute” hen that I got off of some eggs sold on Amazon to see if I could recreate that lovely color. The only thing I can find that looks similar is on an Australian site, and I’m in the US. I also set an egg from my Tibetan hen.

Here’s the roo. As far as I can tell, he looked just like a normal pharaoh color roo.

Here’s the hen (her name is Boots). Very bright whites on the white areas and the rest is a very nice light brown. Definitely not a Roux which have yellow instead of white, and are a lot more red

Anyway, her eggshell and membrane were awfully thick and tough (I thought they’d be a problem the first time I hard boiled one) and I had a pretty poor hatch.
The three that made it:

The Tibetan egg produced a normal color Rosetta, like I expected.

And, I was happy to see that a Boots egg had hatched out with her same color!

This little guy though is clearly a Falb Fee, though, and I’m not sure how that happened. I’m pretty sure Boots isn’t from a place that has Fee gene quail, so it had to come from the roo. I read that Fee was complete dominant, but that would mean the roo would be Fee too!

How exactly does Fee work?

I do have a Falb Fee hen from the same hatch as the roo and they came out of similar looking eggs and as adult birds were very similar in shape and stature. I don’t know if that means anything though.

 

[Kale the Quail]

i don't really know much about genetics, but @muddy75 probably knows way more than i do.

 

[Fenrisulfr]

I had the same phenomena, I mixed a Pharaoh roo with Roux-Dilute hens and expected brown-wild pattern, as the Dilute factor should remove the black.

But I received 100% Falb Fees.

Till now I thought the dilute factor and the Fee factor (removing red and brown) are two different factors.

Still haven't figured out the solution. I will Share, as soon I got it (reading at the moment masses on science stuff, not easy per se and even more when you are not native english speaker

 

[Ruskin_Roost]

Someone had mentioned I also have a Pearl fee. What does the “fee” mean? This is her with her grown colours. I can’t seem to find a match online. The man who sold them to me said they are “Pansy”. So interesting! I would also like to know the connections because I would like to mate my “pearl fee” hen “Speedracer”with my silver roo “Blondie”

Here is Speed Racer as a chick!

And here she was at 4 Weeks

And finally, hereshe is now at 5 weeks. She seems to be getting more and more reddish tones where white used to be. Is she a “Pearl Fee” or a “Pansy” do you think?

Thank you!

 

[shrimpsilkies]

Someone had mentioned I also have a Pearl fee. What does the “fee” mean? This is her with her grown colours. I can’t seem to find a match online. The man who sold them to me said they are “Pansy”. So interesting! I would also like to know the connections because I would like to mate my “pearl fee” hen “Speedracer”with my silver roo “Blondie”

View attachment 2215965Here is Speed Racer as a chick!
View attachment 2215968
And here she was at 4 Weeks
View attachment 2215970
And finally, hereshe is now at 5 weeks. She seems to be getting more and more reddish tones where white used to be. Is she a “Pearl Fee” or a “Pansy” do you think?

Thank you!

“Fee” is “fairy” in Dutch. It’s a gene which stops red and yellow colors from being produced in feathers, so that the quail are all gray, black, and white. Pearl Fee is an Italian speckled or Italian golden quail that also has the Fee gene. Yours looks like a normal Italian speckled, she resembles my hen Kiwi!

This is Falb fee, wildtype pharaoh pattern but gray because of Fee gene. And a normal wildtype pharaoh hen for comparison.

 

[shrimpsilkies]

Someone had mentioned I also have a Pearl fee. What does the “fee” mean? This is her with her grown colours. I can’t seem to find a match online. The man who sold them to me said they are “Pansy”. So interesting! I would also like to know the connections because I would like to mate my “pearl fee” hen “Speedracer”with my silver roo “Blondie”

View attachment 2215965Here is Speed Racer as a chick!
View attachment 2215968
And here she was at 4 Weeks
View attachment 2215970
And finally, hereshe is now at 5 weeks. She seems to be getting more and more reddish tones where white used to be. Is she a “Pearl Fee” or a “Pansy” do you think?

Thank you!

These are some Pearl Fee I found on Google. They should be mostly white with some dark spotting.

 

[Ruskin_Roost]

View attachment 2215987View attachment 2215988View attachment 2215989
These are some Pearl Fee I found on Google. They should be mostly white with some dark spotting.

Yes I saw these! She was totally white and black after getting rid of her baby fluff and then she has gradually yellowed. So interesting!

I asked for a dozen “Pansy” eggs and he said he only had six, so he supplemented with “Celadon” eggs as an apology. Out of the 8 that hatched I have an Italian Speckled (fun!), a Tuxedo, a Silver, and FIVE pharaoh “wild” Coturnix (one is Jumbo)!! So interesting.

 

[Ruskin_Roost]

“Fee” is “fairy” in Dutch. It’s a gene which stops red and yellow colors from being produced in feathers, so that the quail are all gray, black, and white. Pearl Fee is an Italian speckled or Italian golden quail that also has the Fee gene. Yours looks like a normal Italian speckled, she resembles my hen Kiwi!
View attachment 2215981

View attachment 2215976This is Falb fee, wildtype pharaoh pattern but gray because of Fee gene. And a normal wildtype pharaoh hen for comparison.View attachment 2215977

Hi Kiwi!!! She is so pretty. Thank you for the explanation of “fee” that makes so much sense now. Well, I think Speed Racer looks beautiful, no matter what she “is” haha! She definitely has a light coloured feather with black markings. I will look up Italian Speckled! Thanks!