Hawaiian quail adventure.

[RxQuailFiend]

A few months back I was bitten by the quail bug. I convinced a buddy of mine and my girlfriend to go in on a hatch and build a layer cage together. So far out first hatch of 46 birds was about 7 weeks ago. We have culled 11 roos for freezer camp with another dozen or so waiting to be culled. We had a 30 chick hatch about 4 weeks ago and those chicks have been sexed and separated. We are just about to start our third batch of 26 each for jumbo browns and 26 texas A&Ms. Before posting I lurked heavily in these forums and learned a ton from everyone's posts and experience. Ill be posting my own contributions here. I hope any of my pics will be helpful to anyone starting out just as all the prior posts helped me.

 

[RxQuailFiend]

Once our eggs hatched it was a mad dash to build them housing before they fully feathered. We started with new wire some plywood we had left over from disassembled top bar beehives and some new 2x4s from our local home depot. From there things just started coming together. There are 12 layer cages. 4 layer cages per level and one open bottom cage that is 30 inches by 8ft. We turn our birds loose into the bottom layer when they have about 90% of their feathers and once we are able to sex them we move them up to the layer cages in groups of 5-7 birds. So far we are not breading our own but we have a couple of nice roosters we will be saving to breed with our hens later. Its only been 7 weeks and our girls are laying over a dozen eggs a day. We couldn't be happier.
The cages have pvc pipe feeders that hang on the inside of each cage. Each cage has 2 automatic quail cup waterers and a flexibles string of LEDs 32 ft long that snakes over head through each cage. The lights are on a timer ensuring our girls get about 16 hours of light in our normally 12/12 near equator environment.

 

[RxQuailFiend]

Vacuum marinated quail.
Splash of olive oil, teaspoon of cumin, paprika, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, parsley, fresh Rosemary and a quarter cup of fresh lemon. Marinated for an hour and a half after being vacuum sealed. Baked in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. The quail turned out great. Not dry, still light pink inside with a lightly spiced herbs flavor. Served on a bed of diced bacon sauteed with oyster and crimini mushrooms and sliced Jalapeno's.

 

[RxQuailFiend]

I ordered 25 eggs each of JMF Jumbo Browns and Texas A&Ms from Orchard Hill Poultry. They sent 52 eggs that went into the incubator this morning.

 

[N F C]

Looks like things are booming in your quail biz! Good going

BTW, the marinated birds sound wonderful

(And not that it matters in the least, but I have the exact same toaster oven, lol).

 

[RxQuailFiend]

Looks like things are booming in your quail biz! Good going

BTW, the marinated birds sound wonderful

(And not that it matters in the least, but I have the exact same toaster oven, lol).

That little toaster oven was a house warming gift. Its been through weekly use for several years. Solid little machine

 

[RxQuailFiend]

After giving our girls some time to mature a bit more I finally introduced our males for fertilized eggs. In 7 days of storing eggs I managed to save 100+ eggs all over 14g for incubation. This will be the first time I've hatched chicks from eggs layed here at home. We also modified the quail egg turner racks. The eggs were so big that they would rub on the adjacent rack during turning. We used a mini jet lighter to gently heat the plastic on the racks and bend it inward were eggs would normally rub. All of them turn perfect now without pressing, rubbing or breaking our eggs.

 

[RxQuailFiend]

 

[RxQuailFiend]

the eggs with cracks or that didnt make weight went into a batch of Jalapēno Roselle pickled quail eggs.

 

[RxQuailFiend]

First clutch of eggs from our quail hens that we incubated at home. No more eggs from across the country at least for a bit.