GAME BIRDS REARING: QUAIL BIRDS

Anneleng Junior

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6 Years
Sep 22, 2013
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GAME BIRDS REARING: QUAIL BIRDS
Keeping of these birds is a diversification for chicken rearing as such the sector still have a lot of market and with a greater profit turnaround.
FAST FACTS
1. Quail birds are good source of eggs
2. The birds do not require a lot of skills and technicalities to keep them as such it’s easy to keep the birds
3. You will need less space to keep the birds as they require minimum floor space, thus to say you can keep 6 quails in a square foot floor.
4. They don’t require vaccinations and the birds are robust to diseases.
5. They reach maturity at an early ages. It takes a quail bird 6 weeks to reach early sexual maturity, thus they can start laying eggs in about 6 weeks to seven weeks of age with a rate of around 280 eggs per year.
6. Nutritionally quail birds meat is tastier than chicken and has less fat content as compared to chickens. Moreover their eggs contain less cholesterol and together quail eggs and meat promotes brain development in children.
Quail nutritional needs
Basically the birds easily adapt to varied environment, and they don’t require more feeds as compared to their counter parts. A 5 weeks old quail consumes 500gms of feed and for the production of 12 eggs they only require 400gms feed.
Incubation
To incubate a quail egg is more of advantage as they take about 18 days to incubate and only care is crucial in the first 2 weeks.
























 
Awe! They are so cute! Thanks for the facts :) I recently got 16 quail from a friend who didn't want to keep them during the winter. I have a pair of pharoahs, 5 italians, and 9 Texas A&M's. My favorite are the pharoahs. :) Quail are so cool, and their eggs are really tasty. I love all the little sounds they make :)
 
thanks guys, they are little cuties below are pics of the structure i have developed for them the other remaining spaces i used chicken wire mesh to cover




 
GAME BIRDS REARING: QUAIL BIRDS
Keeping of these birds is a diversification for chicken rearing as such the sector still have a lot of market and with a greater profit turnaround.
FAST FACTS
1. Quail birds are good source of eggs
2. The birds do not require a lot of skills and technicalities to keep them as such it’s easy to keep the birds
Game birds do require some skill to keep and you will have to develop it by keeping them. You have to understand their dietary requirements, environmental needs such as space requirements, and you must understand their social structure and breeding habits. They aren't rocket science to learn but it's not nearly so easy as you make it sound.
3. You will need less space to keep the birds as they require minimum floor space, thus to say you can keep 6 quails in a square foot floor.
This number was developed before jumbo coturnix existed. THe birds used to develop this number were 6 ounces max. Many coutrnix lines these days can reach 16 ounces, you couldnt fit six of my jumbos in 1 square foot unless they were dead and piled on top of each other. 1 sq ft per bird is good for hobbyists. Commercially you can away 2-3 birds per square foot but if you aren't experienced at keeping game birds you will not be able to manage them packed into so little space. Space=happiness with game birds and unhappy game birds kill each other.
4. They don’t require vaccinations and the birds are robust to diseases.
This statement could not be less true. Quail have no immunity to common poultry diseases and are very susceptible to parasites.
5. They reach maturity at an early ages. It takes a quail bird 6 weeks to reach early sexual maturity, thus they can start laying eggs in about 6 weeks to seven weeks of age with a rate of around 280 eggs per year.
They reach true maturity at around 12 weeks of age, you cannot count on the reproductive abilities of birds younger than that being consistent.
6. Nutritionally quail birds meat is tastier than chicken and has less fat content as compared to chickens. Moreover their eggs contain less cholesterol and together quail eggs and meat promotes brain development in children.
Quail nutritional needs
Basically the birds easily adapt to varied environment, and they don’t require more feeds as compared to their counter parts. A 5 weeks old quail consumes 500gms of feed and for the production of 12 eggs they only require 400gms feed.
They do however require special feed. Adults need 24% protein and chicks require 30%. They also need to be freely fed oyster shells or some other calcium supplement.
Incubation

To incubate a quail egg is more of advantage as they take about 18 days to incubate and only care is crucial in the first 2 weeks.
This statement is also not true. They require special care for the 4-5 weeks or until they fully molt into their adult feathers.
























I'm not trying to be rude but you have a lot of learning ahead of you if you want to raise quail commercially and be successful at it. If started an operation using the information you provided above your losses would be large. You'd have issues with disease, parasites, and aggression/cannibalism that would most likely cause you heavy losses. BYC has a lot of good info and any question you can think of about your birds has probably been answered here so it's a great place to learn.

Diseases and parasites have much more opportunity to incubate in cages with birds pack in like anchovies. Quail don't often get affected with either but they have no natural resistance to disease and parasites and will have high mortality rates if infected and not treated quickly. There are many diseases that can easily wipe out an entire flock so you have to know what symptoms to look for, so you an quickly treat any sick birds and hopefully mitigate your loss.

Spelling edit.
 
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I'm with DC on this one, one flaw from this post, if you keep them 6 birds per sqft they are going to kick the crap out of each other. Not to mention the amount of poop in the 1 sqft... I wouldn't advise anyone on following this for their birds. This is just cruel...
 
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i have not said i am keeping them in such a space here i was comparing the advantages between them and chickens as well in terms of diseases i have not said they cannot get diseases but in terms of probability and diseases infection compared to their counterparts its low.
 

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