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Italian × Roux: What Color Chicks Do You Get?

This pairing gives you 50% Italian / Manchurian gold and 50% Pharaoh (wild-type brown).

Every chick from this pairing carries one copy of roux and none of them show it. Bred back to each other, or to any other carrier, roux reappears in about a quarter of the next hatch — which is why red-eyed chicks seem to come from nowhere. Band them now or you will lose track of which birds carry it.

The hatch, chick by chick

Chick looks likeCarries, but does not showEgg shell (hens)Share of hatch
Italian / Manchurian goldrouxNormal50%
Pharaoh (wild-type brown)rouxNormal50%

The Punnett square

Yellow

y+y+
YY/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

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 →

Roux Dilute

Simple recessive, homozygous. Two visibly roux parents breed 100% roux.

Roux is a simple recessive on its own locus — a bird needs two copies to show it. Two visibly roux parents breed 100% roux. A roux bird bred to a non-carrier gives normal-looking chicks that ALL carry roux, and carrier × carrier throws about a quarter roux — which is why red-eyed chicks 'appear from nowhere' in coveys that quietly carry it.

Full Roux Dilute 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

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 × ItalianCeladon × RouxEnglish White × ItalianEnglish White × RouxManchurian Gold × ItalianManchurian Gold × RouxItalian × ItalianItalian × Pharaoh
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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 →