Hip Hip HOORAY!!!!

[SandraMort]

My mostly absent landlord gave me permission to put 'a bird cage' in the backyard despite the no pets clause on the lease, so I'm getting corturnix quail!!!! It's not the free range chickens and eggs I'd been hoping to have but when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right?

 

[monarc23]

coturnix make great lemonaide PROMISE

 

[redhen]

 

[SandraMort]

Do A&M come in jumbo size? And how come I see 1 sq ft per head but the pictures look like there are a bunch per cage?

 

[SandraMort]

And who here sells them? I'd always rather buy from BYC'ers.

 

[SandraMort]

Tacky to be replying to myself but all of the photos of baby quail are so adorable!!! My brother in law has an incubator and a hutch for me, plus I'll probably have to build or buy a second to separate out the spare males to avoid fighting over girls, right? I'm really torn as to how many to raise if it's for meat. They seem awfully small so one would think I need a lot, but I only have limited yard space.

Also, what do you recommend I do with the poop? I'd like to compost it and donate it to the local community garden, if that's feasible.

 

[monarc23]

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As my friend Brian says.... going by square footage is "going by the book" and there are loopholes to any "by the book" rules. As in me, I go by what looks comfortable to the birds. I can fit 5 EASILY (jumbos 13+ oz birds) in 2x2x2 pens they can all sprawl out, and not touch the sides of their pens (unless they are intentionally laying to the sides) and arent smashed in there what so ever. Ofcourse it helps if you have birds that like eachother...birds that are aggressive have a field day in a small set up like that with their victims.

A & Ms SHOULD be jumbo sized. Mine are not. They are around 6-8 ozs that's it. A & Ms aren't being bred anymore like they were meant to be....and if you find someone that does have huge A & Ms please let me know!

 

[monarc23]

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Me (though i do more sales of live chicks shipped and local than I do eggs right now).

In no particular order and if i miss anyone I appologize

Shelleyd2008
lilralphieroosmama
cawooduck ( i think sells some not sure)
citalk2much may?
ummm ummmmmm theres a TON more and they are completley passing my mind right now!!!


SHELLEY! you knwo of others! LOL!

 

[monarc23]

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Their doo doo would make great fertlizer once aged!

Great idea!!!


Also, as long as you're incubating what your adults lay you'll never be lacking in the range of quail...PROMISE lol.

Some say 3 birds per person....hubby and i must be hogs because we say 5 per person

 

[SandraMort]

I'm sorry, I don't follow. Three or five birds per person per... meal? Or per breeding cycle?

Pulling numbers out of my butt for the sake of explaining my question. Feel free to correct me if I'm way off

If I incubate 48 eggs and 36 hatch, then out of those we have 18 female and 18 male. Approximately, of course. Then I need to keep 4 males for 18 females to keep everybody fertile, so I have one pen with 18 female and 4 male and one pen with the 14 remaining males who will get culled as soon as they're fat enough. So far so good?

So I process those 14 boys and pop 'em in the freezer. Then once the girls are laying regularly, I put 48 eggs into the incubator and once they're hatched and (some number of days or weeks old), then I process the remaining 18 girls and 4 boys. Following my logic?

My question is, is the 36 birds that I have now processed going to be enough meat to get me through the next breeding cycle until it's time to process again? I'd LIKE to breed enough quail to make this a substantial part of my diet, given how expensive non-gross poultry is around here.

That's not even factoring in eggs -- I'd like to stop buying chicken eggs for my family of six. How many mature quail hens do I need to do that?

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