Nabiki
Quail Geek
When I was first considering quail, I checked with local poultry places to see if they would do it for me too, but they wouldn't. I live in chicken capital, too.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.
If you'd told me a year ago that I would be okay enough doing it to write an article on it, I would have thought you were crazy. It's okay to not want to to it.