Coturnix Quail

I would recommend you get just a few quail if you are not doing mass production. At first, I got too much quail, and it cost more hard work and money that I could've saved if I had not hatched so much.
Now, I have only 4 quail, all females, and taking care of them is pretty carefree! My quail are nice and quiet now, but in the past, some were skittish and ran away often. They can get hurt easily, and bully each other.
I did have to check with my state's laws to see if I had to get a license.

I have a lot of Coturnix quail and I like them

I raised two hatches of coturnix quails in recent years, one of a jumbo Pharoah variety and another of the white Texas A&M variety. I found their personalities very similar, but I liked the Pharoah quails better as mine laid larger eggs. The meat all tasted the same to me. My family really enjoyed it.

Old World quails are a lot of fun...BUT: You really need to do your homework and talk to experienced, reputable breeders. I've heard a fair amount of complaining about quails, and I completely disagree with most of what I've heard. The thing is, they are not chickens and have different needs.

My experience was exactly what was described in the books I read. They are great little birds that are productive and require little space. The trade off is that you have to clean up after them, keep them safe, and be really deliberate in your care when they are little.

The biggest mistake I see people making is starting off too big, with way, way too many birds in their first hatch. I get the temptation, as folks are doing the math and thinking that they'll need dozens of layers to meet their family's protein needs; however, if/when you mess up (and we all do in our first hatches), it will cost you a lot more birds, money, and heartache. Just start with a few dozen, learn from them, and scale up with you own eggs!

In summary: Coturnix quails are worth a try and are amazingly productive little birds. Just do your homework and start small.

They are very fun to watch and are good dual purpose birds. They don’t need a lot of room either, but they do make a mess more than a chicken.

These are lovely little birds with big personalities! I have 5 quail outside that lay eggs for me but they are pretty skittish and don't like to be touched (I tried to tame them but I kept them all together and they got skittish a couple days after they hatched). I have 1 tamed quail that lives inside with me. I only hatched one egg to purposefully tame the chick that hatched (in my experience they can only be tamed if raised alone with little to no contact with other quail chicks). She is 3 months old now and is a great pet. She'll sit with me quietly and maybe fall asleep, likes to sit on my shoulder, she LOVES jumping for lettuce I hang from the top of her cage, and would do anything for mealworms, I take her outside everyday to explore, forage, and dust bathe and I never have to worry about her running off, when it's time to go back inside I just walk over and pick her up no problem. She's so easy to handle, never runs away from people, will sometimes follow you (as chicks they will always try to follow you but when they mature they rarely do). I have 4 new chicks I just hatched and I've been keeping them separated to tame them. One will stay with Cricket my tame quail when I'm not home.

I've kept five quails so far and raised none from chicks. I've heard they're fairly easy to tame, but I didn't have much luck with this. I've housed them in smaller cages, large aquariums and outdoor runs with pheasants. Never saw any aggression from these birds.

They're fascinating to watch and listen to and have a stunning array of vocalizations, including a call that reminded me of laser gun noises from old shows. Their "crow" is very odd but much quieter than a chicken's.

They won't roost but relish dust baths and are super cute when bathing... or doing pretty much anything else.

I would eventually like to get more of them.

These little birds fill a great niche for me. I live in a suburb and require birds that don't make too much noise. I need a bird that produces a good amount of eggs and meat, while requiring a modest amount of feed and caring. The Coturnix Quail fits the bill for me.

The produce almost 1 egg per day, as long as they get enough light. I supplement their light in the morning and evening, so this hasn't been an issue for me. I typically equate 4 quail eggs to 1 large chicken egg. At roughly 6 to 10 week old, they are big enough to harvest for meat. After skinning and dressing, I end up with about (an estimated) 4 to 6 ounces of usable meat per bird.

I usually run a batch of 40 every 3 weeks. The eggs hatch in 16-18 days, then they spend the next 21 days in the brooder. Then they spend the next 21 days in my aviary, at which point I begin harvesting the majority of the males.

Please remember that every animal is an individual and this is MY experience with MY quail. Most quails are like this, though some can be vastly different.
I own currently 1 golden coturnix quail which lays delicious, brown eggs every day. She is kept as a pet/for her eggs too. She came from a butchery and has experienced a lot of trauma but that has all but been reversed. She is a very smart animal and loves to learn new tricks. Bad thing about her and other domesticated quail is they will never go broody. She doesn't care about her eggs and doesn't sit on them either. She is almost 5 months old now, and she has a lot of instinctual behaviours still. She hates bathing in water, loves to bathe in sand and loves different types of vegetables. She crows loudly if she is lonely, but that rarely happens.

_The males can be aggressive towards eachother, and they could breed with a female to her death, but this only depends on how many females per male you have, i'd say the best is between 3-5 females per male to ensure good egg fertilization.
_they are jumpy, i raise them on my rooftop and if one happens to escape the cage as i feed them, it could jump and fly for a good distance, usually when they do this the chances of finding them are very slim.

Great bird overall due to excellent meat and egg production. No other quail can compare.

Quail are really good birds to keep. They lay efficiently for the first year, and they're adorable! Although quail do have a few cons, they're easily cared for and don't need as much space as other birds do! Overall, if you are looking for a low-maintenance bird, then I think the Coturnix Quail is right for you!

When you consider the fact that I only got them for meat and eggs, they are absolutely five star birds. Those looking for chicken-like birds will be sorely disappointed. These are not birds that want to be held or make friends. They're not very bright, but they're a good addition to the farm for meat and eggs when properly cared for. My chicks had a fairly high mortality rate, but that may have been a problem with the supplier.

They are cute and lovable they come in many colours and grow up fast
And don't need any special care they also lay delicious eggs

We have four of these little birds. They are very Cute, as well as very quiet. They don't require much space. They all lay at a steady rate (When it is warm, as soon as the cold hits they shutdown) The main Con is that they spill their food EVERYWHERE. You have to have a pan (We used a Baking Sheet) under their feeder (If you have wire caging). One of ours tries to escape when I open the lid to the coop, she once did it while the cat was nearby, thankfully I grabbed the cat.

I have 3 mature Coturnix quails. If you raise them from a young age, they can be very tame and friendly and you ca handle them a lot but if you acquire them at an older age, they might be very skittish. These quail can fly very high but only for short periods of time.

For the best results, you should try incubating their eggs and raising some chicks. The chicks are really tiny and imprint very quickly, especially if you only have one. You must interact and handle them frequently or they will lose interest in you when they are adults. However, it is recommended that you should keep more than one individual, as they are quite sociable.

If you are new to raising quail, you might want to try out raising these delightful birds!

We recently got half a dozen of these little birds in a variety of colors to keep primarily as pets and egg layers.
Because we've seen such a huge difference in temperament depending on color, I will describe each below.

WHITES
Hands down our favorite variety. They are a good size, lay medium to large eggs, and are extremely bold and friendly. We initially got two, but both turned out to be males and we had to get a third female. All the whites are very easily handled and, when allowed out, don't try very desperately to escape our clutches. Our white female is actually very protective of her cage mate and has actually feigned injury to us to protect her (even though they are both girls).
The males we've had of this color were not male aggressive (meaning you might get away with having several males together as long as there are ladies to go around).
While not particularly important, our white male is the WORST tidbitter. He doesn't tidbit at all.

GOLDENS
In my eyes, the prettiest of the varieties. Their dark beaks and pale faces give them a hawk-like expression, which is aided by their generally bold but flighty nature. Both of goldens (one male and one female) are very watchful. Our male is tamer than the female, but neither are very suitable for holding. Their eggs are medium sized and they tend to be smaller than the other color varieties (bigger only than the wildtype color).
Males of this color can be very aggressive with other males.
Again, while not very important, I love that our golden male is obsessed with tidbitting. He does his best to look after his ladies.

TIBETAN
Our favorite egg layers. Our Tibetan was a big girl to start and lays large eggs (she has even given us several double yokers). She's a wild little thing but pretty. She shows the most potential for broodiness, which is important if you wish to have a bird raise chicks for you rather than an incubator. Our Tibetan hasn't been especially greedy with the food either, letting the male or her female cagemate eat the good tidbits.
We haven't had a male of this variety so I cannot say if they are good with other males or good with their hens.

WILDTYPE/PHAROAH
The least favorite of them all. Our normal girl is small, lays small eggs, eats all the worms (greedy), and is flighty to boot. I can think of no reason to get this color variety over any of the others, UNLESS you are getting a jumbo brown (this color variety but bigger). At which point, bigger bird, bigger eggs, and probably tamer.
We haven't had a male of this variety so I cannot say if they are good with other males or good with their hens. But again, I can't think of why you would get this variety when there are better ones out there.


OVERALL
One of the major pros of having quail is their size. Because they are small, they have smaller space requirements and can even be kept indoors. As a rule of thumb, 1sq ft per bird is acceptable but I prefer to give them 2sq ft. Even at this spacing, they are lawn killers. High ammonia in their feces combined with their tendency to scratch holes for nesting means grass will not survive unless you move their run frequently. This problem can be remedied by keeping birds in solid bottom coops raised off the ground.
If you don't clean their cages on a regular basis, be prepared for a mighty stench.

The second major pro is how fast these bird grow. They mature in about two months, so eggs and meat become available very quickly. However, this growth rate requires high protein content that is hard to find locally or even online. Wild, these birds probably eat a substantial amount of insect as part of their diet. Offering them mealworms, waxworms, crickets, etc that you can buy at the petstore not only provides interesting variety, but also essential protein to their diet. Alternatively, scrambled eggs or ground beef can help if you find your feed isn't high enough in protein.
Be sure that your feed is NON-MEDICATED!!!

I raise coturnix for both eggs and meat. Easy to keep, non aggressive to people. Laws vary by state. For someone without a lot of room, its a great answer to fresh eggs! Really enjoyable birds, can be quite personable.

These are a good breed of quail for beginners. They can lay eggs all year long if given the right conditions even on snowy and rainy days ( my chickens quit laying ). They are very quite and the males have a soft and beautiful "crow". My quails have recently been moved to quail run instead of a hutch and fly around crazily at times and I am afraid they will hurt themselves. My quail chicks sometimes do good and sometimes not so good. My first batch of quail I had 50 hatch and 45 lived another time I had 50 hatch and only 11 live. Overall a very good bird.

The Coturnix quail is the best quail breed out there. They are great layers, which are small to medium in size. They mature fast, so you don't have to wait long to get meat out of them. Their meat is tender and delicious.