Off Season Ideas

[gummylick]

My flock didn't start laying until May, but that might have been their age? I'm in southern USA.

What is the typical offseason like for quail and what do you do for eggs? Do you save all the ones from season and eat them then? Do you only give them a couple months off and use artificial lights? Do you just use the lights year long?

 

[Nabiki]

For coturnix, the off season is when the days start getting shorter than 14 hours. Most of your birds will take a break, though you may continue to get a few eggs during the winter. I get 5-6 dozen eggs per day during high summer, and 3-5 eggs per day during the winter.
You can keep them laying through the winter by providing artificial light, but that does shorten their lifespan. I usually let my ladies have the winter off and eat more meat than eggs during that time. During the summer when I hatch a lot I have plenty of extra boys, so I have plenty of meat in the freezer.

 

[farmer90]

It depends on your preferences. I don't keep my quails as pets so I let them lay all year using artificial light.

 

[Susan Skylark]

I run a string of white led Christmas lights on a timer, here in Siberia it is dark by 4pm but they lay just fine even at -30F, though eggs freeze quickly at that temp! I’m always hatching eggs and want to keep too many hens so productive life isn’t an issue, they get culled for attitude or sold to make room for a different color or something long before they wear out.

 

[gummylick]

I run a string of white led Christmas lights on a timer, here in Siberia it is dark by 4pm but they lay just fine even at -30F, though eggs freeze quickly at that temp! I’m always hatching eggs and want to keep too many hens so productive life isn’t an issue, they get culled for attitude or sold to make room for a different color or something long before they wear out.

I find this quite amusing as I gifted some extras to a friend a few months ago and she often comes to me for advise. Here, in South Texas, winter is coming and she was thoroughly worried about if they could survive during winter. I told her our one or two days in 19, 20F last year, I just would switch out their frozen water for fresh room temperature water every few hours and make sure that they had a dry place to be and they were quite fine. Can't wait to tell her they'll be quite fine and even lay in -30F!