Opinions on the best breed of quail?

[Corbdee]

Hey. Just doing some research and I know nothing about quail. What’s everyone’s opinion on the best breed of quail for hatching and keeping for a few weeks?

 

[sourland]

What's your desired end result ? Meat, eggs, both, pets ?

 

[Corbdee]

Um actually none of those, really. I know Some quail lay eggs very soon after hatching, so maybe until their first eggs and then release them to the wild

 

[MGG]

Um actually none of those, really. I know Some quail lay eggs very soon after hatching, so maybe until their first eggs and then release them to the wild

Well, you can never release hand raised quail in to the wild. If you release 100+ aviary raised Bobs or something, then maybe some would survive, but anything short of that would just feed the wild predator population.
And you have to have a permit pretty much everywhere in the U.S. to release quail. The law is based off of the fact that domestic quail can spread diseases to the wild quail population, so your birds must be tested. Thats a whole ordeal.
Coturnix would probably be the best, but it sounds like you aren't in it for the long haul. If you hatch eggs it is your responsibility to care for those babies to the best of your ability until the end of their days. You can't just hatch eggs for the fun of it and then turn them loose. I saw your other thread. I know it's fun to hatch eggs, believe me, but unless you are prepared amd have researched the crap out of this, don't jump in. You'll just be disappointed.
Unless you have someone responsible to take the birds, don't hatch them.
I'm sure when you're older you'll be able to hatch lots of birds. It's just hard when you're young and still live with your parents. While you're young and still living at home, learn all you can. Then you can be prepared when you're old enough.
Good luck!

 

[Sammi_0411]

I was just about to say the same thing...hon u cant hatch quails handraise them then set them into the wild they wouldnt survive i get hatching is exciting i dont know how old u are but u need to be responsible and as a animal lover that would be a terrible thing to do...im not saying it to be harsh none of us areits really just not the right thing to do
Sam

 

[Twizzler]

To back up what the others have said, releasing hand raise animal causes a multitude of issues. They’ve already mentioned that the survivability is low to nonexistent, so I won’t harp on that. But ecosystems are very delicate things. If some of those birds do manage to survive, they could interbreed with wild quail and introduce who knows what genes into that population. Many an endangered species has had their gene pool swamped with interbreeding and have essentially gone extinct

 

[Corbdee]

Oh wow ok...wise words my friends haha. I do actually have a responsible adult friend who actually asked me to hatch them in the first place because he wanted to release some into the wild (he has a permit and all that jazz) but I didn’t know about all of that.