Quote Originally Posted by goshawkr View Post
I have a friend that finishes quail in free range pens with access to bugs and weeds and dirt in addition to a complete diet. Those things look almost like pigeons. Not as dark, but almost.

I wasn't trying to contradict your assessment BTW. I agree that meat in the bowl looks very pale for a high octane bird eating hawk. And more importantly, it looks very lean - I don't see any organ meat or vitamin in there. I dunno if vitamin suppliments help, but they certainly don't hurt.
Most coturnix quail should look pretty dark like that since the species throughout a good portion of its very wide range is migratory. You can't migrate with white meat. Its only the ones that are raised primarily for meat in small pens, in massive numbers, that have no ability to actually fly, or have access to direct sunlight, or fresh greens and insects, that end up with such pale meat. For the restaurant market this is probably okay because often dark meated birds tend to taste 'gamey' which the palate of the wealthy clientele might now appreciate that much. Certainly the newest recruits that Les Boyd brought in years ago from Tibet are fresh wild type and brought some rejuvenating genes back into the North American coturnix pool. But even these, if they aren't allowed access to those essential resources they will be hard pressed to get to their fullest potential.