Is this something that most anyone can do? And how does it compare to raising chickens for eggs or meat? I know that quail are smaller but other than that are there any downsides to raising quail over chickens?

I Raise the JMF jumbo pharaoh cortonix quail and so far we love them. quail for the most part can be aggressive towards each other but this breed seems to not be as bad. we raise them in a elevated pen and with that we don't have to worry about snakes getting into it because it is wrapped in hardware cloth. Eggs are good for eating and meat is good. They don't take up nearly the space that chickens do.

I've read quail are the most economic yield from feed to protein. If you ever get tired of dealing with them, just wrap em in bacon and throw em on the grill.

Best variety of corturnix quail, I think, is the Texas A&M meat bird. Developed by A&M as a large, fast growing bird, these mature in 7-8 weeks at 10-13 ozs. This makes them one of the largest, if not the largest corturnix. Their flesh is also whiter and some say sweeter than other varieties. You can buy fertile eggs from a number of sources. Here is an interesting article about raising these birds:

https://agrilifecdn.tamu.edu/texaslocalproduce-2/files/2018/11/Quail-Production-for-Home-Consumption.pdf

I have raised them in the past in suspended wire cages with great success.

Skillet Shot said:

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I've read quail are the most economic yield from feed to protein. If you ever get tired of dealing with them, just wrap em in bacon and throw em on the grill.

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Maybe for poultry? I remember all-night research/writing a paper in one of my ESSM classes and stumbling upon the tidbit that channel cats convert ~87% of feed to body mass.

I've thought about raising quail as part of a means to teach my kids about where their food comes from and give them a hands on means to engage with it. My HOA frowns on that. Might have to look into a small footprint setup that the HOA idiots can't see.

I do feel ahead in that game. My then barely 4 year old (now 7.5) walked in the kitchen as I dumped the first whole brisket I ever cooked out of the bag. "Daddy, what part of what animal is that?." I called the dog in the room and showed her where on cattle it came from. "OK." She loved every bite. We repeated this exercise a few months later with a lamb rack but I used her as the demonstration dummy. "It's not people, is it?" No, sweety, it's sheep.

Fishin Texas Aggie 05 raises them. Hopefully he'll see this thread

And like that

I'm here

I raise Texas A&M couturnix

I started with 50 eggs that came in the mail last March and I built 3 pens and each pen hold 3 batteries

Each pen has a 5 gallon bucket with a bulkhead mount going to PVC and other fixtures.

MEWTOGO Automatic Poultry Drinking Cups-6 Pack Chicken Waterer Drinking Cups and 6 Pack Chicken Waterer PVC Tee Fittings for Chicken Quail Duck https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BXSLDG9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_tsA2Fb072D6GQ



Each pen has a 11in rabbit feeder with a bottom. I am feeding Purina game bird mix and it's 30% protein

https://www.purinamills.com/game-bird-feed/products/detail/purina-game-bird-turkey-startena


I have 20 week old chicks in the kitchen right now in the brooder box

I use a nurture right 360 incubator. You can put 44 eggs in the 22 trays and 6 on the uprights as long as you move those around. There's a guy making a quail egg tray for this incubator on Facebook that will hold 57 eggs so I'm excited about that

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/harris-farms-nurture-right-360

Facebook group 57 poultry



Get some of these
Quail Egg Cutter Scissors Stainless Steel Pigeon Bird Egg Opener Pack of 12 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JK8F8PY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_yrA2Fb8XBBY38?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I wanted these but the wife said she wants the birds to be comfy.

https://hatchingtime.com/collections/quail-cages/products/quail-cage-3-layer

The backstory is the wife is a teacher and when school shut down for spring break she wanted a chicken coop. We live in city limits.

I told her we will get quail because they have a smaller footprint

Our first pen wasn't bad but the second 2 were good once we figured out how to improve it. There's lots of good YouTube things.
Coturnix corner
https://youtube.com/c/CoturnixCorner

Slightly rednecked
https://youtube.com/c/Slightlyrednecked

Body wise they are double the size of white wings but smaller than a Cornish game hen

They taste great but that has a lot to do with how you process them

From the time an egg is incubated it will incubate for about 18'days. On day 15 you lock them down and add more humidity.

Baby quail are animals that look for places to die and I can expect about a 70% hatch rate and then about an 10% mortality rate.

After they hatch they will reach sexual maturity around week 6. The roosters will start the crow. To sex a quail you squeeze their vent (buttshole) if poop comes out it's a girl, if poop and white foam comes out it's a boy.

The girls will start laying around week 6-7. And as long as they keep about 14 hours of light a day you get about an egg a day. My birds have a timed light.

You can do anything with a quail egg that you would do a chicken egg. I'm not an egg eater but the girls love them fried in bacon grease. You can also pickle them and I'm making 2 varieties now and I've been told my pickled pink eggs are pretty good, but since I don't eat eggs I'll never know.

Once they get about 9-10 weeks they are a good butcher weight. They ain't getting much bigger in size after that. Even though the white birds are supposed to be easier to pluck i still scald mine and the key is making the water warm enough. I'm really interested in getting a plucker because I would use it for doves as well.

So from a laid egg to plate maybe 11 weeks.

I pick and spatchcock mine and bake or smoke them. They have nice fat legs.

You will get a lot of poop and a lot of wasted feed. They are messy eaters even with the stuff to help them not be. I save all my poop for people if they want free fertilizer. I been told you mix it with mulch it works really good.

Some hens will die on you if they get egg bound but I've only had a few that happened to.

In the coops we built I have a 3qt metal pan. Once they get around laying age I put sand in their and they will dust themselves. Don't have to but it looks neat. I also put Timothy hay in the cold night to give them some insulation in my shed. The pens we built the birds walk on a slanted surface so the eggs roll down into a holding area (in theory) but they will lay in the pans as well. I bought some orileys oil trays
https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/flotool-galvanized-drip-tray-11430mi/9016759-p?product_channel=local&store=6447&adtype=pla&product_channel=local&store_code=6447&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2uH-BRCCARIsAEeef3l7O5N2SUmBpXPGabB6mK_LvJWvMymIFTk87qrraR6pOJ5_HT6pLtwaAjOUEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
Basically something like this. The key is to build your pens around these pull out poop trays.

You will attract rats

I made my brooder box out of a big plastic tub and use blue shop towels as a liner, also crush up your feed for the babies and look for recipes for magic water

1 gal of water
Some crushed garlic
Some honey
Some Apple cider vinegar with the mother

Hopefully this helps answer some questions, if not I'll try and answer them

Thanks for all the info. Looks I might have another hobby to blow money on in the future.

Thanks for all the info. Defineatly enough to get me started in building some coops and looking at getting a few to get me started. Based on videos, google, etc. I've seen that you can hatch your own eggs but every now and then, get some fresh eggs to hatch from another source to prevent inbreeding. Have you seen this problem any? Something else I've seen is to only have 1 male in a cage and you can put 5 female in a cage with him. Do you use a certain ratio?

That's a great idea for slanted surfaces. I've seen that quail lay eggs anywhere and everywhere and I was always wondering how you go around and collect and make sure you get all of them. I think eventually I will do a big enclosure since I'll have the space to do it. I am about to move onto 10 acres of land. Got tired of living in the HOA and being 25 feet from my neighbor.

If you have any pics of your setup, I'd love to see it.

I'll post this evening but I have a zero waste DIY coturnix feeder. And the feeder I'm using for my new chickens appears to be zero waste so far.

Will do

I saw your pic post. In a shed like that, are they getting any sort of natural light? Through a window or some sort of solar light through the ceiling? Or do you take their cages outside any? Or is your light all from lamps or whatever you have setup. Just curious since you'd said that you try and get them 14 hours a day.

I have two windows and when it's not cold the door is open

But the light on a timer should be good

I have 2 cages side by side and that's for my breeders

The other cage is where I raise up the birds for my "freezer pen"

OP

I sent you an email

Anyone try them in a tractor set up?

I'm sure it's possible but it would have to be adult birds and getting eggs would be a pain.

Baby quail are stupid and everything is their natural enemy.

Does anyone know where you could find live chicks near college station or Houston? Or would I need to order eggs?

How many to do you want?

Fishin Texas Aggie 05 said:

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I'm really interested in getting a plucker because I would use it for doves as well.

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This might work for you if you're a DIYer builder type.

ETA - this was the video I meant to post with the drawings & dimensions: