quail breeding

[shelleyd2008]

They don't get tough.

Some people swap out their old birds at the end of the season and start with all fresh birds in the spring. Other people (like me) keep them until they die naturally, occasionally adding new birds to the mix.

Their fertility does not decrease with age in my experience; at most, the hens will slow down on laying with advanced age. I believe my oldest ones are close to 3 right now

Though I did lose a lot of 2-year-olds last winter from the crazy weather we have here

So I'd say, if you want to process them instead of letting them die naturally, you'd best do it before their 2nd birthdays.

I also do not put lights on mine in the winter, I would probably switch them out yearly if I did. There is nothing wrong with swapping them all out at one time, that's just a matter of preference.

 

[the Pollo Loco]

thanks shelleyd that sounds like something I would probably end up doing...

 

[Chinchilla2]

When it came to raising coturnix, I did a rotating replacement that pretty much cycled all the birds over a 18 month period of time while still allowing me to add new blood and do some trait breeding to keep a nice large meaty bird on hand. First, I never did the year round lighting thing. I'm in Texas and during the winter the cages caught lots of light anyway since they were south facing, plus I figured they needed the break. I sat them up in trios and quads, 1 roo to 2 or 3 hens (3 hens only if all three got along and the roo didn't start looking too ragged). When they first started laying I ordered more eggs from a different breeder than my original eggs (small order of 24, nowhere near the original 100+ the first birds came out of). As soon as these new bloodline chicks hatched, I put in one day's worth of eggs from my birds (up til then I either ate 'em or boiled and fed back). Each egg was marked to see what cage it came out of so if any wound up infertile I could work on that particular cage first.

The new bloodline replaced any roos that were in cages where every egg was infertile. New bloodline also set up new trios or fluffed some existing trios into quads. Watched the new setup for two weeks and freezer camped anyone who didn't get along, redistributing where necessary. By this time the chicks from my eggs were ready to be blended in and new trios and quads were created based on size and temperament. Once a month, I would incubate a batch from those groupings that were what I was looking for. As they got older, they replaced anyone who wasn't up to par on size. Sometimes I would only incubate a dozen eggs, other times two or three dozen. If I had some really good chicks, those replaced older stock and the older stock headed to freezer camp. Any young ones that I didn't want in the breeding program went to freezer camp (sometimes my mom's and sister's freezer camp but still freezer camp). After about a year of hatch and replace, I had enough stock that had the traits I was looking for and I backed down on hatching my own eggs to just the occasional fertility testing. Unless a really nice looking bird resulted, most of these test batches when to freezer camp. Once a year I'd order at least 2 dozen eggs to get a little new blood in and only take the best of these to add in the line up. Colored leg bands helped keep stuff straight.

Now, I had a LOT of coturnix but about every 18 months I had completely removed all of one color leg band and would begin working on the next color in the line up. Worked well for over 10 years. It's also the same process I am now doing with my small bob flock I have for personal use. With the bobs it will probably wind up a 2 year cycle but the concept will be the same.

 

[the Pollo Loco]

thanks chinchilla, I did begin to place leg bands on the new birds, as they all start to look the same once they become adults...

 

[chickbird]

Quote:
WHERE ARE YOU BUYING THE LEG BANDS?

 

[joe125]

Quote:
X2 for the most part.

I light mine the same way 24/7/365.

 

[the Pollo Loco]

Quote:
WHERE ARE YOU BUYING THE LEG BANDS?

local feed store...

not quite bands, but look more like rings, but they'll do...