Worth the work???

[ADVaughn]

So, I've been considering dabbling in quail and possibly exploring commercial opportunities with it. Of course, some people are always going to be naysayers. But today someone I trust stated his experience was that quail were a lot of work and not worth the effort.

Of course, I think he was doing it just for the occasional meal. I don't know. I'm still going to try it but I'm really just wanting to pick your brains about it.

Btw...I'm in Texas where fireants have decimated the quail population.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

I had quail...they eat more then chickens it really isnt worth it for meat and or eggs I ended up processing mine because it was a waste of money for a lil bit of meat and tiny eggs

 

[JurassicBawk]

I have had quail now for over 7 years, but only as pets and not to process, and mainly because I was never able to have chickens so they were my substitute. I moved to a 2+ acre lot where technically I'm not supposed to have chickens, but I'm surrounded by farms and have no close neighbors, so gave in last spring and got 4 chickens. Before the chickens I really enjoyed having fresh quail eggs and had family members begging for them, but now that I have chicken eggs they think the quail eggs are too much trouble and don't want them.

I've also learned not to get attached to the quail as pets, even though I hand raised a group this year. It seems that your favorite is always the one that suddenly dies, or the only ones that escape or get killed are the females when you've got extra males around being noisy that you'd gladly give away if someone would take them. They'll be fine for weeks/months then all of a sudden someone bashes their head while bouncing up, everyone sees blood, and chaos ensues with you having to separate them out until they can heal.

I'm sure it would be different if you are doing it commercially, but be prepared for quite a bit of work and loss. I incubated 31 eggs and had 6 not fertile, another 7 not hatch, and out of the 18 that did hatch had to work with 4 of them as special needs. They drown easily, they break their necks easily, they overheat easily, they waste tons of food, and if you raise them outside basically everything wants to kill them. I'd thought about trying to sell eggs to local restaurants, but don't have the volume of birds to be able to do so nor the desire to get licensed/inspected to be able to sell commercially.

 

[bhaugh]

I have quail for meat and eggs. From hatch to process you feed for 8 weeks. Yes you don't get as much but the turn around time is better unless you raise Cornish. I don't know of any quail that will out eat a Cornish.
Quail dont ruin your yard because they must remain penned or they will fly away. The girls are quiet and if you only have a male or two running with the girls they're also very quiet. Even when the birds are laying they are quiet. The downside to this is they do not go to a nest box to lay. They will lay wherever they are standing. Not so good when you are walking around in the pen as my birds are on the ground. Kind of like walking in a mine field.
Processing the bird takes about 5 minutes from start to finish.
I had chickens for years before I got into quail I no longer have chickens.

 

[lomine]

I got my first quail last year, Coturnix. I was living in the suburbs and they were my only good option for raising my own meat. Once you have your infrastructure (i.e. cages and what not) in place I think they are very easy to care for. If you plan for things correctly you can mitigate loss and make things easier. I raised two hatches last year with good success and only had a couple losses right after hatch. Butchering really isn't hard once you get the hang of it. For me the hardest part is the actual killing but that's part of raising your own food.

This spring I decided to move. As part of the move I modified a large dog run on the new property to house my breeders. I missed covering one corner of the run and a family of skunks dug under and killed my entire flock in one night. It was at that point I had to decide if I wanted to continue with quail or not. I put some of their eggs in my incubator and figured I'd let nature decide. These eggs were not correctly stored and were more than a week old. I didn't think any would hatch. Surprisingly 5 of them did. I figured at that point I might as well do it right and I got some more chicks from someone off Craigslist. This past weekend I put my new breeders out in the now fixed run. I have to say, I missed having them out there. I have chickens and ducks too but for whatever reason it's different with the quail.

I don't much like cooking with the eggs. They taste good but are more work. I think they kind of lose their novelty and most of the time I couldn't give enough of them away. But I didn't get them for the eggs anyway. I got them for the meat and, while they are small, they taste so good. Better than any chicken I've ever had.

All in all, I'm glad I started over.

 

[bahamabanty]

I used to have chickens for years, but my work situation changed and I am now busier than I used to be, I sold my chickens and kept the quail. Way less maintainance for me. They are in a raised 8'x4' hutch, on a sand floor. Once I had all my cracks sealed and changed all my wiring to 1/4" hardware cloth I was good to go. I lost a lot of quail to those little corn snakes that crawl tru any type of gap or even the 1/2" hardware cloth. They can eat a quail whole, I don't understand how they even do it.