Getting ready

[Quailobsessed]

I have never raised quails. I am making an out door inclosure. I was just wondering if you had any tips

Are you planning to hand raise them? If you did, they could become very friendly pets.

 

[mdees88]

How many quail do you want to raise?

Why do you want to raise them? Pets, meat, eggs?

Make sure you realize that most info you read about coturnix quail does not apply to bobwhites. Coturnix are super easy to raise and are quick, prolific producers of meat and eggs. Bobwhites are a little more complicated and are much slower growing and less prolific producers of meat and eggs. Bobwhites are considered gamebirds and many states require permits to raise them, not sure if snowflakes would apply or not, might want o check up on that.

There is plenty of info you can find on how to raise bobwhites.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-to-raise-bobwhite-quail.66972/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/raising-bobwhite-quail.571829/

Only issue I see is only setting 4 eggs in the incubator. A 50% hatch rate is considered good and assuming this is your first time hatching eggs with an incubator you've never used before there's a pretty big chance you will have less than a 50% hatch rate. Which will put you at 25% or 0% considering there's only 4 eggs.

So out of 4 eggs you can expect two eggs to hatch (hopefully). Ideally 1 would be male and 1 would be female but "ideally" usually never happens when hatching. What if they are both males? Then you get no eggs and they'll likely fight once mature. What if you only hatch 1 chick? Quail are social animals and live together in coveys. Ideally they shouldn't be kept alone. I would recommend getting at least a dozen eggs to hatch. Out of a dozen eggs you'll probably get between 4-8 chicks. 2-4 males, 2-4 females.