I don’t think I can do it!

[Nabiki]

I hope this helps.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-to-process-your-quail-including-gory-pictures.75834/

 

[Teneniel]

I just did my first four! It really wasn’t as bad as I thought. Once they’re dispatched it’s more a matter of solving a puzzle.

because I’m woo woo hippie about my livestock I was sure to thank them and ask for a quick true strike. Took maybe 30 minutes for all 4, including time to train my dog to leave the chickens alone with the quail parts we won’t eat.

 

[FloorCandy]

I just did my first four! It really wasn’t as bad as I thought. Once they’re dispatched it’s more a matter of solving a puzzle.

because I’m woo woo hippie about my livestock I was sure to thank them and ask for a quick true strike. Took maybe 30 minutes for all 4, including time to train my dog to leave the chickens alone with the quail parts we won’t eat.

My experience was very similar, with the first 4 extra males. The puzzle ended up being easier than expected. I watched a bunch of videos, slightly rednecked, other homesteaders I watch, but I found the best video to be a game warden showing how to field dress quail.

My husband has bigger fingers so I think it was easier for me to do a lot of what I thought would be gross, but even skinning and removing the insides was much less messy and difficult than prepping a store bought turkey with gizzards and stuff, and I reminded myself that every bird I raise and eat is less poultry sales supporting the big poultry industry.

My birds play in bird baths, eat worms, sunbathe, dig and run around in a large safe pen for 100% of their lives, and the end comes quickly before they even suspect something is happening. I didn’t make my kids eat it, watch it or participate. But my son wanted to taste it and he loved it, but what he experienced and saw was just like the grocery store meat, mommy marinated meat, put it on the grill etc. We had 19 to start, so no one was really attached to any that we ate. The ones with names get to stay. So familiar faces aren’t missing.

I’m not at the point where I want to regularly process my own meat, I’m not purposely growing meat birds, but I have no problem with the processing of extra males. My son wants everyone to have their own quail on thanksgiving, so I’m thinking that might be a good way to cull a bunch for winter, keep a few to lay and hatch new in the spring.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

My experience was very similar, with the first 4 extra males. The puzzle ended up being easier than expected. I watched a bunch of videos, slightly rednecked, other homesteaders I watch, but I found the best video to be a game warden showing how to field dress quail.

My husband has bigger fingers so I think it was easier for me to do a lot of what I thought would be gross, but even skinning and removing the insides was much less messy and difficult than prepping a store bought turkey with gizzards and stuff, and I reminded myself that every bird I raise and eat is less poultry sales supporting the big poultry industry.

My birds play in bird baths, eat worms, sunbathe, dig and run around in a large safe pen for 100% of their lives, and the end comes quickly before they even suspect something is happening. I didn’t make my kids eat it, watch it or participate. But my son wanted to taste it and he loved it, but what he experienced and saw was just like the grocery store meat, mommy marinated meat, put it on the grill etc. We had 19 to start, so no one was really attached to any that we ate. The one with names get to stay. So familiar faces aren’t missing.

I’m not at the point where I want to regularly process my own meat, I’m not purposely growing meat birds, but I have no problem with the processing of extra males. My son wants everyone to have their own quail on thanksgiving, so I’m thinking that might be a good way to cull a bunch for winter, keep a few to lay and hatch new in the spring.

That's how I am now. I've come to accept that roosters won't always be able to find a home, even free ones, so I've decided I may as well butcher the extras myself and get a return than try to give them to a home that will probably eat them anyways.

 

[Mhays]

So - do I just have an especially nice set of roosters? We got 3 hens and a rooster as adults, and 8 chicks - and a setup that's really for 8 birds. I was assuming I'd probably get 4 and 4, and dispatch the extra roosters...but of course, I think I only got 2 hens.

That said, the only a-hole we have (which I was kinda counting on to help me with the dispatching part) is the original rooster, and he's only sexually aggressive...(or probably, normally so) He only crows in the morning, or if you take one of the girls away.

No henpecking, no infighting, just my Tuxedo hen who is a badass and doesn't take crap from anybody including said rooster (she will flip herself over underneath him in that move they used to teach in Women's self-defense classes.)

The only negative to having 12 birds in 8 square feet thus far is the poop. (Oh, the poop...) I mean, the babies are still juveniles, but just barely. Waiting for eggs and crows any day now...

 

[Nabiki]

So - do I just have an especially nice set of roosters? We got 3 hens and a rooster as adults, and 8 chicks - and a setup that's really for 8 birds. I was assuming I'd probably get 4 and 4, and dispatch the extra roosters...but of course, I think I only got 2 hens.

That said, the only a-hole we have (which I was kinda counting on to help me with the dispatching part) is the original rooster, and he's only sexually aggressive...(or probably, normally so) He only crows in the morning, or if you take one of the girls away.

No henpecking, no infighting, just my Tuxedo hen who is a badass and doesn't take crap from anybody including said rooster (she will flip herself over underneath him in that move they used to teach in Women's self-defense classes.)

The only negative to having 12 birds in 8 square feet thus far is the poop. (Oh, the poop...) I mean, the babies are still juveniles, but just barely. Waiting for eggs and crows any day now...

Sounds like you have some good roos. That may change as the young birds mature, however. This is especially true when they are as crowded as you say. Most quail hobbyists will tell you that they need at least 1 square foot/bird. Mine have more like 2-3. Commercial breeders will put more in, but they care less about the happiness of the birds.

 

[Mhays]

Sounds like you have some good roos. That may change as the young birds mature, however. This is especially true when they are as crowded as you say. Most quail hobbyists will tell you that they need at least 1 square foot/bird. Mine have more like 2-3. Commercial breeders will put more in, but they care less about the happiness of the birds.

Right - I mean, my intent was/is to cull. I was just expecting there to be a need to separate them as I grew them out...

 

[Mhays]

Whoosh. So I just culled 3 (we have some that are less easy to sex, so I'm waiting a bit) and I admit, I'm a little traumatized.

Even so, it went fine. I thought I was going to go the old-fashioned route of neck-twisting, but that immediately didn't work and I had good kitchen shears right there to do it right before the bird noticed.

So, the issue I have with shears is that it's hard to keep them from sliding backwards and making you do two cuts, but I learned as I was doing it, and it's still so fast that they don't have time to react. (For the last one, I used my other hand to guide the top of the head so it was solidly inside the scissors. Of course, that was the one who didn't go quietly...but he went without trauma; that was all dead nerves doing their thing.)

There is shockingly little blood, and once the feathers or skin is off (I was a little overzealous scalding them and wound up skinning the last two) it's not so hard to snip open the breast and scoop out the guts, which are easily identifiable as crop, heart, gizzard, liver, lungs and intestines. I liked that I was able to save the giblets. I was a little surprised at how much digestive system there is that you have to discard...

That said, I think next time I have to cull, I'm going to see if our local live poultry place can do it. I don't mind cleaning them, but I couldn't help feeling bad for the little guys, and I'm frankly sad. I feel bad for fish, too, so if cleaning a fish doesn't bother you, it's really not that different. Just offering the perspective of a typically highly sensitive person.

Kinda like natural childbirth: am glad I did it, see no reason to ever do it again, barring being forced to during a zombie apocalypse. Bring it, zombies, I'm ready! Until then, Chicago Live Poultry it is.

 

[Teneniel]

Kinda like natural childbirth: am glad I did it, see no reason to ever do it again, barring being forced to during a zombie apocalypse. Bring it, zombies, I'm ready!

Hahahahah that’s exactly what I tell everyone who asks!

 

[Quail4Fun]

I agree with all the other posts that say unless you're going to become vegetarians (which we are not) it is the price of eating meat. I look at it this way:
1. If I do nothing, the boys will kill eachother in a brutal fashion and we can't eat them then so loss of bird and dinner.
2. I choose my birds based on if they are overly loud and mean to each other. That being said, we have 2 males left because I don't feel an overwhelming sense to kill birds who aren't causing issues.
3. Birds raised in mass production have a miserable life and then die. Our motto here is " Great life and one bad day" where a bird we buy at the grocery store has a whole life of bad days. We give them all the luxuries while we have them in our care.
4. Before we cull them, we pause and say a short prayer over the bird for the bird's sacrifice for us to be able to eat. It helps to appreciate the sacrifice of the animal and provide a bit of emotional closure.
5. Every time we prepare our birds to eat, we treat it like a special dinner, since this was the meat we raised ourselves. Again, just a way for us to honor the bird's life for us to eat.
6. We use it as an educational event to teach our friends and family about the sacrifice of the animals. My high school/home schooled niece needed to dissect an animal for science class so helped me process some birds (i did the actual culling) = dinner prep and science lesson in one.