Which Coturnix to get?

[White Apple Homestead]

Just starting to get into raising quail (hopefully for a little profit) and not sure which Coturnix to get. I’m leaning toward the natural colored birds. Not really into the white colors, but I am interested in money so color don’t matter.

I want to sell pickled eggs, eggs by the dozen and hatching eggs. I’m also interested in selling live and processed birds. All on a small scale.

Which variety of Coturnix should I start with? Ive got a brand new incuview up and running and I am ready to buy some eggs from here or Ebay or wherever I need to.

Thank you all for any help you can provide.

Brian

 

[CliftonQuail]

I have Jumbo Wild Coturnix. I got the eggs from MyShire Farms and hatched them last June. Wilds are the largest type. They'll start laying around 6 weeks old. I just checked on MyShire's website and they're showing 22-24 weeks lead time on shipping Jumbo Wild eggs. They show 8-10 weeks on Jumbo Egyptians which are a bit smaller than the Wilds. There are other hatcheries that I've seen mentioned on here, but haven't dealt with them.
FWIW, I ordered 50 eggs, they shipped 60, but only 24 hatched (I suspect it was my inexperience with incubating). Zack at MyShire insisted on giving me a 50% refund since I didn't hit the 50% guaranteed hatch rate. I would definitely order from them again. I've been hatching my own eggs trying to work out the bugs in the process before I actually buy anymore, though.
Welcome to the club.

 

[Nabiki]

If you don't care about colour and just want eggs, any will do. If you want them for meat and eggs, get jumbo wild types.

 

[Hourman]

The only thing I would add to the previous comments is this. If you plan on selling processed whole birds, look into jumbo whites. Most consumers, and almost all chefs, prefer birds which are plucked with the skin still intact. The white birds clean up just a little better and look nicer after plucking.

 

[CliftonQuail]

Thank y’all for the responses. I am going to keep my shire in mind but want to get started a little sooner than that. Y’all helped me a lot.

FWIW, I placed an order with Sandy Soils Farm for 30 Jumbo wild eggs late evening on Monday, 2/13, they shipped on Thursday, 2/16, and I received 36 eggs on Saturday, 2/18. I'll be setting them on Sunday 2/19 evening. They're in SC and I'm in TX. I have no experience with this vendor, but will update with my hatch rate when possible.

 

[White Apple Homestead]

Thank y’all for the help. I ended up buying 25+ on eBay for $30. I wanted to buy the JMF eggs from southwest gamebirds but they were a little more expensive and shipping is almost a month out. I’ll buy more soon. This incuview is holding its temp very well but the humidity seems very sensitive.

 

[White Apple Homestead]

Thank y’all for the responses. I am going to keep my shire in mind but want to get started a little sooner than that. Y’all helped me a lot.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

You may also want to check your local market to see if the celadon eggs are something people would be interested in. Or the different colored birds. If people are wanting them for pets/eggs, there could be a market for that. But it would be a lot more complicated keeping track of all that when breeding.

 

[knicoll71]

Checkout Stillwater Quail out of Montana. He has some awesome birds! I bought 4 doz hatching eggs and all but 5 were viable on lockdown. He has jumbo wild, colors, and celadon. Selling live birds and hatching eggs I'm super lucky since they're pretty local to me.

 

[CliftonQuail]

FWIW, I placed an order with Sandy Hills Farm for 30 Jumbo wild eggs late evening on Monday, 2/13, they shipped on Thursday, 2/16, and I received 36 eggs on Saturday, 2/18. I'll be setting them on Sunday 2/19 evening. They're in SC and I'm in TX. I have no experience with this vendor, but will update with my hatch rate when possible.

Here's my hatching update. Out of 36 eggs received, only 9 hatched. There were 10 that didn't show any sign of development at lockdown and the rest just quit somewhere along the way. Of the 9 that hatched, three have died. One broke its neck, I found one dead for no apparent reason and the third seemed fine until yesterday afternoon. It was suddenly lethargic and wouldn't eat or drink. Its vent looked a little bit soiled, so I cleaned it with an Epsom salt bath and tried to get it to drink from a syringe. A few hours later, I found it dead. The remaining 6 seem just fine.