Does a Pharaoh × Tuxedo 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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Pharaoh × Tuxedo: What Color Chicks Do You Get?

This pairing gives you 50% Pharaoh (wild-type brown) and 50% Tuxedo-type Pharaoh.

The hatch, chick by chick

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

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

White spotting

	w	w+
w+	w/w+	w+/w+
w+	w/w+	w+/w+

White spotting: Dose-dependent, not cleanly recessive. Two copies give the mostly-white English White; ONE copy shows as partial white — the tuxedo bibs and patches — and how much white you get varies from bird to bird. Perfect symmetrical bibs are the exception, not the rule.

What each parent brings

Pharaoh (Wild Type)

The wild type — no color mutations at all. Every other variety is described by how it changes Pharaoh.

This is the reference genome — no color mutations at all, which is exactly why serious breeders keep a Pharaoh line running. Every dilute and pattern gene is described by how it changes Pharaoh. Crossing anything back to Pharaoh is the standard way to stabilize a wobbly line.

Full Pharaoh (Wild Type) guide →

Tuxedo

A single dose of white spotting. This is why Tuxedo × Tuxedo "throws a range — some crisp tuxedos, some mostly-white, some mostly-dark": that range is the ordinary 1:2:1 of one gene at half dose. HOW MUCH white a single dose puts on a bird varies a great deal, so treat the pattern as a probability and the symmetry as luck.

Tuxedo comes from the white-spotting family in an intermediate dose — commonly from pairing dark-based birds carrying spotting (breeding English-White-type spotting into E-family bases). Tuxedo × Tuxedo throws a range: some crisp tuxedos, some mostly-white, some mostly-dark. Perfect symmetrical bibs are the exception, not the rule.

Full Tuxedo 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 × Pharaoh Celadon × Tuxedo English White × Pharaoh English White × Tuxedo Manchurian Gold × Pharaoh Manchurian Gold × Tuxedo Italian × Pharaoh Italian × Tuxedo

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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 →