California cortunix

[olofsonb]

Hello all, my brother and myself were/are planning on getting roughly 50 quail here shortly. Any expert advise would be greatly appreciated.
Feed cost, pen sizes, etc. I plan on training my 1 year old vizsla on a few. Also selling the eggs, chicks and adults. What can i expect to pay for all the necessities and what can I expect to recover in sales? Are there any laws I should be aware of. I've reviewed a few threads, but you can never have too much knowledge on the subject matter.

Thanks

 

[WaterfowlWierdo]

Hello all, my brother and myself were/are planning on getting roughly 50 quail here shortly. Any expert advise would be greatly appreciated.
Feed cost, pen sizes, etc. I plan on training my 1 year old vizsla on a few. Also selling the eggs, chicks and adults. What can i expect to pay for all the necessities and what can I expect to recover in sales? Are there any laws I should be aware of. I've reviewed a few threads, but you can never have too much knowledge on the subject matter.

Thanks

Quail dont go through much food at all, as long as you can make a no-waste system. And pen sizes are usually 1 sq ft per bird, you can go less or more, but I prefer more. For raising 50 to start, the price will hit you a little hard, but quail really pay themselves off and quickly. I bought a brand new GQF Sportsman Incubator this January (roughly $740) and my quail have it paid off already. I can usually sell 200 chicks per week if I am up on hatching. Also, if you have the room, consider selling adults by lots of 100, many falconers pay pretty good for adult birds

 

[Fat Daddy]

I would fear training your pointing dog with coturnix would be tough.... I found the coturnix lack of "flush" instinct will tend to make a pup want to catch the bird that wont fly... I found Chukar to be far less confusing to the pup.... Chukar can be raised in the same type of pens as coturnix but maybe fewer of them. I raise them and find them my game bird of choice in all areas.... Here is a study that helped me along from University of California Davis




http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/21321e.pdf

 

[olofsonb]

Good to know. At the moment I'm working on the "drive". I plan on later introducing pheasant and ducks. That was great info. Now I think I might do chukar too haha. What is usually the going rate on those?

 

[Fat Daddy]

$7-$8 bucks a pop for 16 week or older birds. But I raise them for meat birds and very rarely sell any.....

 

[olofsonb]

When you say you rarely sell them, is it because you don't want to? Or because demand isn't there?

 

[Fat Daddy]

When you say you rarely sell them, is it because you don't want to? Or because demand isn't there?

The demand is there. I raise birds for my pleasure and meat. The few times I have ever had extra it only took a craigslist add to get rid of them. I sell and butcher to get down to just breeder stock in the late fall. Chukar are 20-22 oz birds at 16 weeks and I shoot for 50 vac sealed, grill ready birds in the freezer when snow flies. One bird each for my bride and I, that's 25 meals. This usually gets us thru. but it seems most of the birds iv sold went as breeding stock..... But there are a good number of folks that dont know what a chukar is.......

 

[olofsonb]

Perhaps you could advise on what I could expect expenses to look like for approximately 20? Thanks.

 

[Fat Daddy]

Perhaps you could advise on what I could expect expenses to look like for approximately 20? Thanks.

Well we can walk thru it.... I assume you already have incubator, brooder and pens..... For 16 week grow out only, a 8' x 30"x 18" tall pen is all I use for 20 or so birds... Two 6'x30"x 14" to 18" high would be better and put 10 or 15 in each.. 20 birds in my pens will start picking when they reach about 16 weeks old. Or when it gets hot..... Chukar seem to get testy when its hot.... If I wanted 20 birds from shipped eggs Id order 40.... you'll likely get a better hatch rate than 50% because chukar just travel better than most eggs and are not sensitive to age. They actually hatch better when seasoned for 10 days up to 3 weeks.... Dont know why, it is just the way chukars are. This is not theory, its been proven many times.... Check this supplier out. Iv used them many times with good luck. But there are many souces for chukar eggs and ebay is always a option. http://www.chukareggs.com/price.php Looks like 40 eggs with run $34.00 + $20.00 shipping, = $54.00.... It will take about 6lb of Game Bird Startena to get them to a butcher weight. Around 16 weeks they will have 93% of their grown weight and will not be economically feasible to feed them any longer for meat birds. 6LB X 20 birds = 120lb of game bird starter. I pay $16.00 a 50lb bag. so thats 3 bags at $16.00 = $48.00 If you have a good hatch you could easily end up with 30 birds and still have enough to feed them out. So bottom line for $102.00 dollars I can have 20 to 30 adult chukar for between $5 and $3.40 per bird..... The more eggs you buy the cheaper they get. I have always felt that unless you really like the bird, Value your time at all, or have really easy winters. Its makes more sense to buy your eggs instead of carry that many breeders thru the winter.... But I always seem to, I guess I just really like have'n them around. They lay dependably from late April thru August and produce 2 eggs every three days on average.... Good luck. Bill

EDIT TO ADD: If I start early, I can get 2 groups ran thru my pens and still not have to fight freezing water or snow.....