We just breast our quail. It's way easier. The only time I take the effort to use the whole birds for something other than to feed the dogs: when we have company. Otherwise we breast and toss the dogs the rest. I usually keep feathers for jewelry or fly fishermen.
Agreed. At three weeks in this heat you should be able to turn then out.
I don't think I could just take the quail breasts even though I'm sure that there isn't THAT much more meat on them besides the breasts. I've been trying to get better about using as much of things as I can. I swore I was just going to pull the meat off these roosters, grind it, and toss the bones. But I just couldn't waste. So the bones are in the freezer until it gets cool, then I will roast the bones and make/can up broth. I'd feel too bad just taking the breasts off the quail and not doing something else with the rest. And I only have so much room to store broth, and with our turkeys and chickens already, I would cry if I didn't have enough room to make quail broth too. LOL.