Does a Rosetta × Tibetan 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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Rosetta × Tibetan: What Color Chicks Do You Get?

This pairing gives you 50% Rosetta and 50% Tibetan.

The hatch, chick by chick

Chick looks like	Carries, but does not show	Egg shell (hens)	Share of hatch
Rosetta	—	Normal	50%
Tibetan	—	Normal	50%

The Punnett square

Extended Brown

	E	E
E	E/E	E/E
e+	E/e+	E/e+

Extended Brown: Incompletely dominant. Two copies make a Tibetan, one copy makes a Rosetta, and no copies leaves the wild Pharaoh base — which is why a Rosetta pen can never breed true.

What each parent brings

Rosetta

Extended Brown heterozygote (E/e+). One dark gene, one wild-type — which is why no Rosetta pen breeds true.

Rosetta is Extended Brown heterozygous (E/e+). Because they carry one dark gene and one wild-type, Rosetta × Rosetta splits roughly 25% Tibetan / 50% Rosetta / 25% Pharaoh — you can never have a pure-breeding Rosetta pen, and every hatch is a surprise assortment. Tibetan × Pharaoh makes 100% Rosettas if you want a whole covey of them.

Full Rosetta guide →

Tibetan

Extended Brown homozygote (E/E). Tibetan × Tibetan breeds true.

Extended Brown (E) is incompletely dominant. Two copies (E/E) make a Tibetan; one copy (E/e+) makes the lighter, rusty-chested Rosetta. That means Tibetan × Tibetan breeds true, while Tibetan × Pharaoh gives you all Rosettas — a tidy, predictable system that makes this family great for learning genetics.

Full Tibetan 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 × Rosetta Celadon × Tibetan English White × Rosetta English White × Tibetan Manchurian Gold × Rosetta Manchurian Gold × Tibetan Italian × Rosetta Italian × 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 →