Bobwhite

I enjoy raising Bobwhites, while it can pose it's challenges (especially brooding young chicks), I have found the adults to be quite hardy and relatively low-maintenance, providing proper environmental conditions are maintained.  Lots of work goes in to tending the birds while they are still young and fragile- temperature is checked several times a day, waterers cleaned daily & I medicate the water for the first 2 weeks- a step which reduced my losses by more than HALF when I first decided to try it.  Chicks who are brooded together can be raised together in a mass colony, provided you have a large enough space.  I have never had a problem with fighting or cannibalizing and I can keep anywhere from 200 to 1000 birds per pen, depending on the size of the pen. 

There is a decent commercial market for these birds, which is why it's nice to be able to raise them in large numbers.  With hard work and a little luck, it's possible to make a little extra money doing this, even as a smaller-scale hobby.  And even if you have no desire to raise hundreds of birds, it can be plenty rewarding to bring a handful of chicks up to adulthood just to be able to watch them & enjoy their pretty little quail song.  Even after being knee-deep in gamebirds all year, after all the hard work, dirt and bird poop, even when most of them are sold and we only have the 50 or so that we keep for ourselves left over in the winter, I still get a kick out of them every day :)