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We got into quail kinda by accident. We had been thinking about it, so found someone to get 2 from to try to eat them ... just to see if we liked the meat. We drove almost an hour to this place we found on Craigslist. Deplorable conditions, even to a novice like me who'd never seen quail before. All over the room, a few up in breeder cages. Broken eggs all over, some stuck to legs. Smelly and really disgusting. We took three home, and decided to hold off on eating them for 3 days in case they had diseases, etc. But then we started getting an egg a day, and decided to keep them.
One died within 2 weeks ... kept popping up and banging its head on the cage roof. We had the other 2 for about 6 months and no amount of handling ever helped them calm down.
As much as we liked the eggs, we'll wait a little while before we get back into quail. So starting them from newly-hatched chicks should help?
it was probably due to the horrendous conditions that yours were so skittish. For the most part they are not at all like that though i do have 5 E.W.s that are fearful. I think that perhaps it is due to years of inbreeding . There has been no new blood added to the whites in i think she told me,5 years.
I have others that come running, most people do and that is the norm rather than the exception.
Chicks from eggs or already hatched i think isn't the issue ,but are they healthy bloodlines and from healthy conditions. It also doesn't hurt to hatch them yourself.