Need ideas on how to sell Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail in Maine......

[BasilHillFarm]

Hi,

I bought 30 Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail chicks the other day. I've been waiting a while to find someone in my state that had some available. They are a week old and are all happy and healthy. I was planning on selling the eggs for hatching and for food, and selling chicks and adult birds to those that wanted there own flock. I also wanted to sell all ready processed meat for restaurants. I didn't think this would be a problem and found one that will buy them but..... here's the problem. No butcher houses in my state process quail that I know of. And restaurants can only buy from federally regulated slaughter houses. I live in Maine. Does anyone else know of any way to either get around this or know of any butcher houses in Maine that will do quail that are federally regulated? What do you who have quail do with your surplus? I plan to hatch out two batches a month if possible...... So I will have a lot of meat if I can find a place that does it....

 

[Quailfamah]

LOL im the one you baught them from. try greaneys turkey farm in mercer, they might process for you. as for egg sales youll have your ups and downs, but you have to know when to raise the price and when to lower your price. sometimes i get $7.00 a dozen and sometimes i get $2.00 a dozen, it all depends. but rember, just beacuse youve have dryspels in the buisness, dont give up. it will pick back up.

 

[aprophet]

what you are being led to believe might be a state or local law but going by FSIS

"Other domestically raised birds, including domestically raised game birds, such as pheasant, quail, or partridge, or domestically raised water fowl, such as swans, are not amenable to the PPIA and are therefore not subject to mandatory inspection."

http://askfsis.custhelp.com/cgi-bin...p_faqid=1371&p_created=1271264751&p_topview=1


I would call your state dept of AG and talk to someone local who can give you a good answer instead of some guy on the internet LOL good luck HTH

 

[BasilHillFarm]

Ok so I finally got through to some people. They only way to sell poultry legally (here in Maine) is to have a state inspector look over every bird when it is being processed. The fees are insane. I'm probably looking at over $4 a bird..... I'm not allowed to sell or even give away meat that hasn't been inspected and stamped here in this state. They are cracking down even on people that sell eggs now..... It's all about money in my opinion but idk. Makes it very hard to raise anything. The lady was telling me about some lady that was selling zucchinis beside the road. And some state official requested her license of which she didn't have. Who knew you needed a license now to sell zucchinis!!!! *Rolls eyes* So I'm going to try and raise my birds properly and hope no one tries to take them from me cause I will get them processed the legal way and take very good care of them.

 

[JJMR794]

Sell Them Whole And Alive On Craigslist.... I Advertise Whole, Live Meat Quail. You Can Still Sell Them For The Meat To Individuals, But Since You Are Not Selling The Meat You Dont Have All The Processing Hoops To Jump Thru And No Expense-- It Is An Insane World And Only Getting Worse Each Week....

Welcome To Gamebird Farming My Friend!

 

[kingbee]

Some of your smaller farms are going in together to form local coops which members pay a small fee to join and then share the cost of inspection and related fees. Basically everyone puts their birds (games, chickens,hogs, etc) through a regulated and inspected processing plant / trailer and work together for the common good of the coop.They help you,you help all of them.

We are lucky here we are only inspected when we hit bird number 20,000.Facilities are inspect yearly usually by our local health dept.

 

[Riffecreek]

Quail is NOT considered poultry or at least here in Ky, they're not. I can start my own butcher house just by working with my local health dept.

 

[BasilHillFarm]

That's what I'm trying to go through is a co-op. It's the only one in the state. And it's inspected. And they aren't allowed to make any profit on the birds they process but it's still going to be probably over $4 a bird. I will sell live birds to anyone that wants them but..... I can't sell them live to restaurants. Also the membership fee to this coop is $100. Fun fun. At least I've found a way. They say that they don't process quail but the person in charge is going to bring it up to the board and they will get back to me tonight or tomorrow. Here is the link to the co-op. http://coopp.weebly.com/

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
so if I lived there I could call him out to inspect 2 birds every other day maybe 3 birds some days wow they would make a lot doing it that way LOL that would be too much a temptation, for me call every day for 3 months to come inspect one bird a day LOL good luck with it pal

BTW I run into people who work at 7-11 here and I sell eggs to them so I am selling my eggs at 7-11 that and the smaller take out Asian restaurants here I am covered in them here.

 

[BasilHillFarm]

No they don't inspect my birds here at the farm. They inspect them while they are being slaughtered. My options are a federally approved slaughter house (none in the state do quail) or take them to this co-op thing where they hire this state official to overlook the whole process and then we can sell them because he has seen that it was done properly. the fee is for the slaughtering/inspection. I'm also not going to be doing 2 or 3 at a time but more like 50 - 100 at a time.