The Origin of Red Quill Dutch Bantams

The Red Quill Dutch Bantams were produced quite by accident in the 1980's. From a breeding pen of Light Browns one very unusually colored chick was hatched during that season. The strange coloring really caught my curiosity. Now, I must add that this was the second season that I was breeding Dutch Bantams, so at that time I was certainly no expert. I was very observant with each chick that hatched that season to see if there would appear any further surprises. Only one oddity actually hatched and it grew up to be a little cockerel. It was quite obcious from the early weeks that this chick would not be a typically colored Light Brown; but one that would be very red in color. He turned out to be a bird that was basically a red colored bird with a black tail. Just as he reached maturity, he died from no problematic systoms. I sometimes thought that perhaps I looked him to death as I would daily handle him because of his oddity. It was such a huge disappointment to lose the little cockerel. I remember thinking to myself that I probably would never hatch another one like this again.

After the disappointment of losing the cockerel, I made sure to keep all of the Light Browns in that same breeding pen so that the following season I could see if I could produce another oddly colored chick. Sure enough, I did hatch out two more, both of them females. They were colored very strange with a somewhat tan base color with the most strange marking on their feathers. It appeared that rather than their dark colored stipples being speak out evenly, they were gathered together to make somewhat of a barred marking on the feathers. To me they appeared to be more like a buttercup marking. No other strange chicks hatched for the remainder of that breeding season.

The major question that came to me was could I produce more oddly colored offspring? I again set up the same Light Brown breeding pen including all the 5 original females and the cock bird that I had initially used. I used the two females of peculiar color and mated them with thier father. That breeding season I had no odd chicks produced and even the chicks from the two little odd pullets seemed to be light browns. I decided that it might be possible that I was dealing with a recessive mutation related to the distribution of pigmentation in the feather pattern. Perhaps I should go to some male bird that showed some hint of recessive character.

During the off season I searched and searched for what I considered a candidate male bird to head my breeding pen. After many months of looking, I located a splashed Blue Light Brown male bird which had an excessive amount of redness and who additionally had a a lot of red dots in his breast area. I know that this all sounds as though I knew what kind of male I was looking for but this certainly is not the real truth of the matter. I just knew that this male was not the typical color pattern and I was purely taking a shot in the dark approach to my ideas of heading this breeding pen in hope of producing the desired results.

The next season I produced about 40 or 50 offspring from the sport Blue Light Brown crossed to the odd little females. About half of the offpring were more resembling the Light Browns or Blue Light Browns; about one-fourth were like their mothers and about one-fourth were a lighter shade with the blue tail rather than the black one.

In the meantime, I had started reading and researching poultry articles to see if I could locate any similar situations of perhaps oddly colored birds suddenly appearing in any other locations. I contacted Mr. Fred Jeffrey and he quickly responded that he was aware of some similar situations in the Old English. He stated to me that he had seen the birds once before and he had also seen pictures of the Old English birds that were oddly colored. He somewhat reluctantly described them at to him looking more like a red quill pattern that existed in the Standard Games. I sent Mr. Jeffery some pictures and some feather samples for him to view. He again responded quickly by saying that my birds did seem to have almost the same mutanted pattern that had appreard in the Old English. With renewed enthusiasm, I continued to work on the birds for another few breeding seasons and kept very careful notes as I went through each step at attempting to perpetuate the lines for producing the oddly colored birds.

A couple of years down the road I had the unique opportunity to meet with Mr. Jeffery at one of the local shows here in the southeast and allowed him to see the pattern that I was working on. He confirmed that this did absolutely appear to be the same mutated pattern as the Old english and he and I considered naming the pattern. I decided to refer to this as Red Quill and Blue Red Quill and he suggested that I write an article on my work. In 1990, at Mr. Jeffreys suggestion, I sent in my article outlining my breeding statistice to be publish in the ABA Yearbook.

I showed the birds at several of our regional shows and drew quite a bit of discussion and interest. Several people expressed an interest in acquiring a few breeders to help out with the project and I did share some birds with them. In the early nineties I sent a some trios up to Paul Kuhl in New Jersey. It was during that winter that a family of raccoons broke into my Quill pens and destroyed the quill breeders and I had nothing to use to continue my project. I have not bred quills now for several years and have had a longing to again breed them. After talking to Paul, he agreed to send me a couple of pairs from which to start my quill breeding over again.

Arrangements were made this fall for Paul to send me two pairs of Red Quills. Upon their arrival I was very impressed at their good coloring and general type and condition. Now I again had my quills back home and I could again breed them just for my own pleasure.

What does a Red Quill look like? I imagine that most of you were not around and showing Dutch bantams in the late eighties and early nineties when I would occasionally show Red Quills. Well, if you have ever seen a buttercup pattern, then then you have seen birds similar to the Red Quills, or if you have ever seen the Red Quill Standard games, then you have certainly seen this pattern.

As newly hatched chick, they are distinctly different from the typical light brown chick down pattern. Red Quill chicks are somewhat yellow chicks with some indistinct dark spots on the head-back area and a splotched appearance. As they mature the younger birds, which first feather out are almost mottled with black on a red base color. As they mature and molt into their adult stages little females begging to be a little bit different from the males.

Red Quill females are a golden tan color with bold markings of black bars on the feathers of the neck, body and back region. The breast area is not salmon as in the Light Browns but is somewhat of a lighter shade of golden tan and usually has some black streaking in the feathers. The tail is black.

The Red Quill male is reddish color with a little different shading of red on the main body with is darker red and the shading of the neck hackles and saddles being a lighter reddish color more along the lines of orange. The tail is also black in the males.

It is a really nice feeling to have the Red Quills back in my breeding program after an absence of several years. I do plan to show them as soon as I raise some offspring this season. Look for them in the shows and let me know what you think of them. They are very different from any patterns that you might have ever seen before.