Looking to hatch and release bob white quail. Any experience/input?

[asher]

Has anyone here done this and, if so, would you care to share your experiences or input? Does hatching them yourself or purchasing them already hatched work best? Approximately how long does it take to raise them from hatched to released and how much work/effort is involved, timewise and otherwise, total? Everything I've read so far says you mostly need to be hands off aside from lighting, feeding and watering, but I'd love to hear some first hand experience since this is a gift/surprise of sorts and I don't want it to fail epically. :-/ I want to figure out if it's even feasible before taking too many steps towards it and getting the family (read hubby lol) excited.

JUST started to research and have already been looking in to the legal research as well, of course.

Thanks so much!

 

[Dragons4u]

Depending on where you live, it may not be legal for you to do that.
If it is, you usually have to have a permit, inspections, and testing to do it.

 

[cavemanrich]

Not sure why you want to raise and release. I know that around here they raise and release pheasant to be hunted. I do not see any sport in killing domesticated birds. ( that is only my view). When I did go hunting a long time ago, and seen the cages of pheasants, and was informed of the practice, we left. Maybe you want to surprise a farmer friend with a free range flock of quail. What ever your choice, it does not concern me. You can buy quail eggs and incubate them. I think in about 4 to 6 weeks they are able to fly. If you release them then and there is no natural occurring feed available, then they may perish from lack of food. Wild quail know exactly when to have their young , so they have an advantage over you. As to the legal part. You can back up your activity that they ran away from you. What they don't see don't hurt them. One reason I do not keep quail, is they would escape from my facilities given a chance. I keep homing pigeons. Chickens also, which will not escape.
WISHING YOU BEST ..

 

[Binki]

Not sure why you want to raise and release.   I know that around here they raise and release pheasant to be hunted.   I do not see any sport in killing domesticated birds. ( that is only my view).  When I did go hunting a long time ago, and seen the cages of pheasants, and  was informed of the practice, we left.   Maybe you want to surprise a farmer friend with a free range flock of quail.   What ever your choice, it does not concern me.   You can buy quail eggs and incubate them. I think in about 4 to 6 weeks they are able to fly.   If you release them then and there is no natural occurring feed available, then they may perish from lack of food.  Wild quail know exactly when to have their young , so they have an advantage over you. As to the legal part. You can back up your activity that they ran away from you.  What they don't see don't hurt them.  One reason I do not keep quail, is they would escape from my facilities given a chance.  I keep homing pigeons.  Chickens also, which will not escape.
WISHING YOU BEST .. 

Hehe try coturnix quail - they're so domesticated they don't even realize they're in captivity and a few of us have tame quail as pets, I have two in two different areas of the property that are downright obsessed with me lol!!

 

[cavemanrich]

Quote: That is just it, I don't want them in captivity, just free ranging in the open run with my chickens. They will fly away as soon as able. When I free fly my pigeons, they return after flight.

 

[asher]

Definitely not for hunting. Although we DO hunt other wild game, these would not be for hunt. They used to be very thick on our mountain when my husband was a kid and he remembers he and his Pop raising and releasing them at some point to help keep the population going. I'll definitely do my research before I even get close to serious about it. Thank you for the input!

 

[ocap]

I wonder where they went. Here in MO, Bob White quail have been missing for 20 years, someone told me (and you might try and find out) that fescue has a natural poison and grasshoppers eat the fescue and quail die from eating the grasshoppers, if that is the current food chain your released birds are doomed, my free range chickens die from predators before any poison has time to give them a health problem.

 

[Dragons4u]

Where I am, pheasants and quail have pretty much disappeared due to farming practices and lack of habitat. Now predator levels have sky rocketed, so any releases don't last long.
You can get different permits here though. I don't remember all the names but you can get one to keep them in pens. A permit to hatch and release, a permit to hatch/raise and release, and a different permits to raise to sell, hatch to sell, and to sell eggs. To get any of those you have to meet all the testing requirements and any other regulations they put on it.
To sell eggs, you even have to have your water wells/sources tested.

 

[asher]

Thanks y'all. Lots to think about. I know we've seen lots of signs of predators hanging around lately and killing our deer population so perhaps this will have to remain a fond memory of his past instead.

 

[gpop1]

I was asked a few years ago to consider raising quail for hunting. Raising hundreds of quail didn't seem to much of a challenge until they said they had to be flight trained.

To avoid losses to predators and to make hunting a sport rather than a turkey shoot the bird would have to be strong flyers that did not see humans to a source of food. This meant large long pens to allow for muscle build up and minimal interaction with humans especially during feeding.
This really counted out cortnix and the cost to raise bob whites just on feed was equal to what they were considering paying per bird so I didn't bother looking at things like permits etc.

There are places in Georgia that supply quail for hunting. They sell in huge quantity's at a reasonable price per head so some how it can be done.