I think that I'm going to call it quits on the quail !!

[Yvonne37894]

So I got quail that I thought were A&M's, TOO small just white quail.

I have learned a lot from raising them, mulitply raipidly and a lot of fun. Very rewarding to see success.

I went from 6 to over 100 in a 3 months.

Is there a better selling season for them?

Would they be selling if I had a different breed of quail?

I even got NPIP certified on them!

Just cooked over 100 eggs to feed to the chickens!

Now what do I do with all of them?

Any thoughts?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I'm over 2 months in and they aren't even laying yet! I need to have some hatches!! How did you do it in 3 months?!!? You could ship them to me

I have Jumbo Browns and all they have been doing is crowing, eating, pooping, fighting, and making me wait for eggs. I KNOW I have females...GRRRR!!

 

[Bettacreek]

IMO, if you have coturnix quail, in order to actually sell a good number of them, you need to have something special. Try to find eggs from either very large jumbo birds (14oz adults) or a rare color. I had to do this with button quail. Since you cannot realistically eat button quail, they need to bring in more money than the coturnix will have to (since the coturnix can just be butchered), so I went with a rarer line of button quails.

 

[Wifezilla]

Are you having trouble selling the birds, the eggs or both?

Where have you marketed your quail?

Have you advertised? Where?

Can you use the eggs and butchered birds yourself?


Cindiloohoo, do you have light for the quail? I use a 100 watt equivalent CFL in a desk lamp and it is on top of their cage. I turn it on when I get up (about 6:30am) and off at around 9pm or so. I get an egg almost every day from all 3 of my girls.

 

[Yvonne37894]

I have advertised on CL with very little responce. eggs @ .20, 3 weeks @ $1.00, Breeding @ $2.50

The local trade & save, bummer.

The nieghbors took 4 butchered quail, liked them but have not reordered.

They are laying more every day, I've turned off the lights at night to slow them down a little.

I've never shipped eggs or chicks before !!

 

[Wifezilla]

I would send fliers to any asian markets. Contact sushi restaurants...they use quail eggs.

Spring is coming. Road side stand maybe?

Farmer's market season is not too far away.

Another option is to contact people who feed their dogs raw food. The would LOVE quail eggs and birds. Tends to be a bit of a higher end market. Maybe even contact pet stores about stocking your eggs and birds for their customers.

 

[Kullas]

I got quail to raise and eat not to sell but every now and again i do sell some. even if i dont sell any im still getting better meat cheaper

 

[shelleyd2008]

Do you have any livestock auctions in your area? Coturnix aren't very common here, I usually sell my extras at the auction. Granted, they only bring $2-$4, but for something that reproduces so quickly, which I can sell at 3-4 weeks old, I still come out ahead. I sell the eggs on ebay some, mostly on here (when they are laying

). You might want to advertise at your local feed store, or there is another site at www.bestfarmbuys.com. It covers the whole country by state, and is for farm equipment and livestock only.

 

[becky3086]

Yeah, quail eggs really don't sell very well and neither do the quail themselves. I basically raise them to eat now, and the rest of the eggs pretty much just go to waste, unless I decide to pickle some. It is possible you might have better luck selling bobwhite quail to people for hunting but I have never tried that.

 

[Yvonne37894]

thanks Wifezilla

I'm going to call the 1 and only pet store in town and see if they might be interested in them.

I work too many hours a week to be setting up on road side.