Doves/Pigeons versus Quails?

[Quails1]

Okay so I started this thread, hence the title, and we currently have New-world quail species. I'm heavily deciding which one would be more efficient to raise since I've never had doves or pigeons before, though we've had quails in the past up to this day and so forth.

From the information I've read, watched, etc. I can tell doves and pigeons will sit on their eggs and brood their own young. This method of breeding will save us money from an expensive artificial incubator. I've never observed quails do this in captivity. They'll lay their eggs scattered across the pen floor. The eggs are collected for roughly a week prior to transit in the incubator. I'm so accustomed to raising quail I'm thinking if there's a better way to breed them instead of harvesting the eggs and storing them in an incubator, and that would be pigeons/doves.

Which one is better? And has anyone had both birds?

 

[LamarshFish]

Okay so I started this thread, hence the title, and we currently have New-world quail species. I'm heavily deciding which one would be more efficient to raise since I've never had doves or pigeons before, though we've had quails in the past up to this day and so forth.

From the information I've read, watched, etc. I can tell doves and pigeons will sit on their eggs and brood their own young. This method of breeding will save us money from an expensive artificial incubator. I've never observed quails do this in captivity. They'll lay their eggs scattered across the pen floor. The eggs are collected for roughly a week prior to transit in the incubator. I'm so accustomed to raising quail I'm thinking if there's a better way to breed them instead of harvesting the eggs and storing them in an incubator, and that would be pigeons/doves.

Which one is better? And has anyone had both birds?

I have not bred either, but I have had a breeding pair of chukars for 3 years, and I just got homing pigeons. If it's hatching volumes you seek, IMO for a few hundred dollars you can get a decent incubator and incubate quite a few quail eggs per process, as compared to waiting for pigeons to set their 1-2 eggs per pair. You'd need quite few breeding pairs of pigeons to hatch volumes. My chukars lay an egg per day from about April through September, since they want about 14 eggs in a clutch, as opposed to pigeons doing just 2, and chukar eggs supposedly stay viable for about 28 days if I can remember right, so with something like chukars you can incubate a solid 30 eggs per laying hen / breeding pair. But as you mentioned, quail (and chukar, in my observation) will not set their eggs in most captivity situations, but they lay a ton. So if it's volume of chicks you want, I would go with quail or chukars, and incubate the eggs yourself. But I'm uncertain exactly what it is you are intending to do.

As far as quail go, I have heard many people have luck with the coturnix and Tennessee reds. I know people who also breed bob whites by the thousand, and they're easy as well, but they are mean little SOBs lol.

I have also heard of folks putting a handful of quail or chukar eggs in their pigeon lofts, and the pigeons will actually set them. When they hatch the pigeons won't know what the heck the little buggers are, and they need to be removed right away and put under brooding lamps I think. Just sort of a funny experiment that could be tried out if you don't want to buy an incubator.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Quote:

Never had quail but I raised ring neck pheasants which have the same wants and similar character traits.

My passion is homing pigeons. They are aloof by most standards but can be trained with patience and unsalted shelled peanuts.

If meat for the table is you goal then I would recommend King Pigeon or the Runt to name just two.

There are also pigeons bred for their unique flying abilities such as high fliers, tumblers, or rollers.

Do a google search on the type or types of pigeons that may meet your requirements.

 

[lightchick]

I have Coturnix quail and West of England tumblers and they are both very fun. It is a plus that the pigeons take care of their own young, but at the same time the quail lay way more eggs and the eggs are fairly easy to incubate.
I think either one would be a good choice.

 

[Quails1]

I have not bred either, but I have had a breeding pair of chukars for 3 years, and I just got homing pigeons. If it's hatching volumes you seek, IMO for a few hundred dollars you can get a decent incubator and incubate quite a few quail eggs per process, as compared to waiting for pigeons to set their 1-2 eggs per pair. You'd need quite few breeding pairs of pigeons to hatch volumes. My chukars lay an egg per day from about April through September, since they want about 14 eggs in a clutch, as opposed to pigeons doing just 2, and chukar eggs supposedly stay viable for about 28 days if I can remember right, so with something like chukars you can incubate a solid 30 eggs per laying hen / breeding pair. But as you mentioned, quail (and chukar, in my observation) will not set their eggs in most captivity situations, but they lay a ton. So if it's volume of chicks you want, I would go with quail or chukars, and incubate the eggs yourself. But I'm uncertain exactly what it is you are intending to do.

As far as quail go, I have heard many people have luck with the coturnix and Tennessee reds. I know people who also breed bob whites by the thousand, and they're easy as well, but they are mean little SOBs lol.

I have also heard of folks putting a handful of quail or chukar eggs in their pigeon lofts, and the pigeons will actually set them. When they hatch the pigeons won't know what the heck the little buggers are, and they need to be removed right away and put under brooding lamps I think. Just sort of a funny experiment that could be tried out if you don't want to buy an incubator.

For clarification, it's more of how I choose to breed which bird, rather than the amount of chicks that hatch. What I mean is, I'd pick to have a bird that'll rear its own hatchlings over harvesting the eggs and artificially incubating them, regardless of clutch size. For quails, in captive situations, they won't hatch their eggs and raise their offspring. So I will need an expensive artificial incubator to hatch them. For doves and pigeons, give them an open nest positioned off the cage floor. They make great foster parents and can incubate the laid eggs then brood their own chicks.

 

[laughingdog]

Some of my courtnix quial will incubate their own eggs, for rest you can put two to possibly four under rock dove or ringneck dove with pairs own eggs,

 

[JaeG]

Button quail, if raised by their quail parents, will set a clutch of eggs whenever they feel the impulse. It sounds like the ability to brood can be bred out of quail very quickly. Artificially raised Buttons often won't brood their own eggs and males raised without parents can attack and kill their own chicks.

I am lucky enough to have a lovely, naturally raised pair in my aviary and the female is very friendly, often underfoot to see what I'm up to! She'll sit on a clutch of eggs whenever she feels like raising chicks. I usually don't even know she's laying a clutch until she starts sitting and isn't there to greet me at the door.

 

[JackBaker]

I have both quails and pigeons, Coturnix quail and fantail and frillback pigeons amongst a few rescues of various breeds in another aviary/loft. I also have zebra finches and diamond doves.

My pigeons, and doves for that matter, will constantly be trying to incubate and hatch their own eggs. This does sound good but trust me it gets annoying . At least once per year someone somewhere will sneak a nest and hatch it when I do not want them too.That being said you can harness this behaviour in favour of sitting on quail eggs if that was your goal. Pigeons regularly take to eggs if you sneak them under them when they are already sitting. I often move my fantail eggs under the other breeds i have so I am able to have more fantails produced per year. The other breeds i have take to the eggs no problem, the trick is you have to time it right as they will only sit for a certain amount of time before they deem the eggs as infertile and leave them. So if you know when they go down and how long they have until they will stop sitting it is very possible to put some quail eggs under them and have hem hatch them out. I have a friend who had king pigeons and used them to hatch out some duck eggs he had. Once they hatched he removed the chicks and raised them indoors. Diamond doves would be far too small to incubate quail eggs but Barbary/collard doves probably would be able to, and they are much more gentle in nature than pigeons and may be less inclined to squish a quail chick.

My coturnix quails have gone broody for me before and have successfully raised their chicks although this is rare. I'm in my last year of college studying animal management and for my year long project this year I chose to study why they did it and what influenced them to do so. It was quite fun and I got some really good results, this was based of the coturnix Japonica though. I am not allowed to present my findings yet but once I have it all done with college I would be more than happy to share my results with you and you can then try to imply it to your quails to see if it worked on different species. Which I think would be interesting to see if it would.

 

[Stajemahal]

Between these birds which would be considered the noisiest?

 

[Hokum Coco]

which would be considered the noisiest?

Noise would not be considered much of a factor when considering any of the a fore mentioned birds. I would think pigeons may top the list, then possibly doves, I never raised quail.