The beautiful Rudina chicken is actually an expert in egg production

Recently, a blogger shared his daily life of raising Rudina chickens online. It is said that they lay eggs every day. Many friends were attracted by this kind of chickens raised in the living room.

I even saved money on buying eggs | Tik Tok: @玛卡的鲁丁鸡

In fact, their official Chinese name is blue-breasted quail, which is a close relative of quail. If you are really interested, then Calendar Lady will come to help you find out - according to Chinese law, blue-breasted quail is a protected animal, and you need to apply for a "domestication and breeding license" to raise it. However, putting aside the question of whether or not to raise it, blue-breasted quail chickens... are quite delicious!

The blue-breasted quail, Coturnix chinensis, is also known as the sweet-scented osmanthus finch and the rudin chicken. It is named because the feathers on the head and chest of the male are bright blue. This small bird is distributed in southeastern my country, Southeast Asia and Oceania. It belongs to the same family as the chicken that we often see and eat, the Phasianidae.

The blue-breasted quail is the smallest in the quail world (although it is small, its English name is the domineering "king quail"). An adult blue-breasted quail is only 12 to 14 centimeters long and weighs about 40 grams, which is much lighter than a mobile phone.

Blue-breasted quail, the female on the left and the male on the right. The male blue-breasted quail has a beautiful blue head and chest, a reddish-brown abdomen and a white circle on the neck, and the overall color combination is very beautiful. The female blue-breasted quail lacks the white circle on the neck and its body color is relatively dull.

The blue-breasted quail has a varied diet, eating everything from seeds to insects. Its reproduction is affected by climatic conditions. If the weather is suitable, it can reproduce almost all year round, but it is more common in autumn and winter. Each nest can produce four to ten eggs. In the wild, the blue-breasted quail mainly walks on land, and can also fly short distances.

Look at my colorful combination

Blue-breasted quail has a long history of artificial breeding, and many places in my country also specialize in raising blue-breasted quail for eggs. In the artificial breeding environment, by screening individuals with different colors and further hybridizing and breeding, blue-breasted quail has been bred into more than 15 colors, and many of these colors can also be stably inherited.

A blue-breasted quail in captivity | Maurice van Bruggen / Wikimedia

The colorful color combination makes many breeders no longer keep them as egg-laying birds, but as pets, especially pure white ones, which look more lovely (of course, the price is higher). Compared with the original color individuals, it is a little more difficult to distinguish between male and female blue-breasted quail because the color difference between male and female becomes less obvious in some color combinations.

Artificially bred tuxedo (also called penguin) blue-breasted quail. Currently, blue-breasted quail has many colors such as silver, camel, white, and red breast. | Tuchong Creative

Super fast breeding program

The eggs of blue-breasted quail weigh only about 5 grams, and are light green or grayish yellow in color, sometimes with small gray spots on them. It only takes about 16 days for the fertilized eggs to hatch into a miniature "chicken" - the blue-breasted quail chicks look very similar to chicks, and they also make a "beep" sound similar to chicks.

A 10-day-old blue-breasted quail. Newborn chicks need to be kept warm, but they are more likely to survive whether they are raised artificially or by their parents. | メルビル/Wikimedia

Blue-breasted quail chicks are very small, and there are several of them in a handful | Nick Bradsworth / YouTube

The growth rate of white-feathered chickens is surprisingly fast, and they can be marketed in just 40 days. The growth rate of blue-breasted quail is even more exaggerated: the chicks start to grow wing feathers when they are about one week old. By the second to third week, the chicks have gradually replaced their down, and by the third week, they have basically completed about 75% of the feather renewal. In the fourth and fifth weeks, they have grown into the appearance of their parents and reached adulthood. After another one to two weeks, they can start to reproduce.

Considering that the blue-breasted quail has a lifespan of about 3 to 6 years in nature and can live up to 13 years under artificial breeding conditions, this growth rate is amazing.

Super egg laying expert

Humans have been domesticating chickens for thousands of years, and the current breeds of chickens bred for egg-laying can produce up to about 300 eggs per year.

The blue-breasted quail is considered a fighting quail in the quail world. Although it is small in size, as long as it maintains proper dietary nutrition and suitable light, temperature and other breeding conditions, female blue-breasted quails can basically lay one egg per day. Statistics show that under ideal conditions, the annual egg production of blue-breasted quails can reach more than 300 eggs (usually around 250 eggs).

Considering that an adult blue-breasted quail weighs only about 40 grams and an egg weighs about 5 grams, a female blue-breasted quail can produce an egg equivalent to her own weight every 8 days on average. This number is really impressive.

Blue-breasted quail eggs | Didier Descouens / Wikimedia

Here's another amazing statistic: an adult blue-breasted quail only needs about 5 grams of food per day, and its eggs can weigh up to 5 grams, a truly impressive conversion rate.

Although blue-breasted quail eggs are small, the yolk accounts for a relatively large proportion of the egg. It is even similar in size to the yolk of eggs of farmed quail commonly found on the market (mostly Japanese quail C. japonica). The average weight of quail eggs is about 11 grams.

From left to right: Chicken eggs, quail eggs (colorful and white), blue-breasted quail eggs | Melbir / Wikimedia

In recent years, more and more farmers have started to raise blue-breasted quail. Compared with other poultry, blue-breasted quail has many advantages: they are very easy to take care of, they eat less so the feed cost is low, they are relatively quiet and not annoying, and they are even quieter if you raise only female birds. And because of their small size, they do not need much space to move around. You only need less than half the space of traditional egg-laying quail to raise the same number of blue-breasted quail and harvest quail eggs periodically.

The blue-breasted quail has a wide range of diets and is not picky about food. Formulated feed can be supplemented with vegetables, mealworms, etc. to enhance nutrition. The blue-breasted quail is physically strong. During the breeding process, as long as you pay attention to providing appropriate water and food, there are generally few diseases. | Abraham / Wikimedia

Deliciousness is a kind of self-cultivation

In the farm, if a batch of blue-breasted quails have passed their peak breeding period, their fate is the same as other egg-laying poultry, becoming food for humans. Some of the quails sold for food in the market are "old" quails that have passed their peak breeding period and have been eliminated. And when we say old, they are actually only a little over a year old, but they can no longer maintain their high-yielding characteristics, so they are "cruelly" eliminated.

Although this practice sounds inhumane, it is a common practice in the animal husbandry industry. Egg-laying hens and dairy cows that have lost their ability to lay eggs and produce milk will eventually end up like this. In the animal husbandry industry, there is no such thing as caring for the elderly and seeing them off to the grave.

Pan-fried quail legs | Alpha / Wikimedia

Although blue-breasted quail is small, it tastes good after cooking. The only drawback is that due to its small size, a dish requires many blue-breasted quails, and the edible meat of each one is relatively small. Similarly, due to the small size of eggs, frying a single serving of poached eggs requires more than a dozen blue-breasted quail eggs, which even sounds a bit extravagant.

Although it is only a small bird, the blue-breasted quail is a combination of beauty, deliciousness and powerful skills.

This article comes from the Guokr Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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