Does a English White × Italian pairing breed true?

No. This pairing segregates — you will get 2 different outcomes in the same hatch, in the proportions listed on this page.

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English White × Italian: What Color Chicks Do You Get?

This pairing gives you 50% Tuxedo-type Italian / Manchurian gold and 50% Tuxedo-type Pharaoh.

The hatch, chick by chick

Chick looks like	Carries, but does not show	Egg shell (hens)	Share of hatch
Tuxedo-type Italian / Manchurian gold	—	Normal	50%
Tuxedo-type Pharaoh	—	Normal	50%

Tuxedo-type Italian / Manchurian gold: A single dose of white spotting shows as partial white — bibs, belly patches, odd white primaries. How much white it puts on a bird varies a great deal, so expect a spread rather than a matched set.
Tuxedo-type Pharaoh: A single dose of white spotting shows as partial white — bibs, belly patches, odd white primaries. How much white it puts on a bird varies a great deal, so expect a spread rather than a matched set.

The Punnett square

Yellow

	Y	y+
y+	Y/y+	y+/y+
y+	Y/y+	y+/y+

Yellow: Dominant and homozygous-lethal. One copy gives the gold Italian / Manchurian look; chicks that inherit it from both parents die in the shell, so every living gold bird carries exactly one copy.

What each parent brings

English White

Two doses of white spotting. White × white breeds white reliably; crossed to anything else it hands every chick a single dose, which is where tuxedo-patterned birds come from.

Built on recessive white spotting: two copies produce the mostly-white bird. Because the gene masks whatever color lies beneath, English White × colored crosses can throw surprises in later generations as hidden colors resurface. White × white breeds white reliably.

Full English White guide →

Italian (Fawn)

Yellow heterozygote. No living Italian is homozygous, because double-Yellow embryos die in the shell.

Italian is built on the Yellow (Y) mutation, and here's the rule: Yellow is homozygous-lethal. Chicks that inherit Yellow from both parents die in the shell, so every living Italian is heterozygous. Italian × Italian hatches run about 25% smaller than expected (the lost double-Yellows) and throw ~1 in 3 Pharaoh-colored chicks. Italian × Pharaoh gives you roughly half of each with no losses — the smarter pairing.

Full Italian (Fawn) guide →

What this assumes

Both parents are exactly what they are sold as. A bird carrying a hidden recessive — roux, celadon, white spotting — changes these numbers. Recessive carriers are invisible, which is the whole reason surprises happen.
These are per-chick probabilities, not a quota. A 50/50 split does not mean half your hatch of ten will be each. Small hatches swing hard; the ratios show up over dozens of chicks, not eight.
Coturnix inheritance is debated and varies by line. The modes used here are the ones consistently reported by breeders, and they match what our own variety guide says — but verify against your own stock before you plan a season around it.
Color only. Size, lay rate and temperament come from line selection, not from these genes.

Try a different pairing

Parent 1 varietyParent 2 variety

Need a trait that is not a named variety? Use the full genetics calculator to set alleles directly for recessive, dominant, incomplete-dominant and sex-linked traits.

Other pairings keepers ask about

Celadon × English White Celadon × Italian English White × English White English White × Manchurian Gold English White × Pharaoh English White × Rosetta English White × Roux English White × Tibetan

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Stop guessing which bird carries what

Quail Keeper Max stores every bird's variety and celadon status, builds 4-generation pedigrees, and predicts the hatch from your actual pairings — so the invisible carriers in your covey stop being invisible.

See Breeding & Genetics →