thinking of raiseing quail for meat and eggs

[Barred Rocks forever]

i would like to hear some pros and cons about it do you guys process all your birds when it comes time or do you keep some to hatch eggs ? starting to sell eggs for profit and im also interested in giving quail a shot do the male quail crow and is it really bad ? should i keep one flock for eggs and the other to process how do they taste do you have any good recipies do they like a outdoor run ? what breed is good for meat ? what breed is good for eggs ? whats better to do keep quail for meat or eggs if the quail pen is near the chickens will the chickens harass them ? also my moms a little squeemish about raiseing animals to be processed is there anything u guys think i could say to her so she would be ok with me doing this ? thanks for your help

 

[geese'n'chickenlovr]

I usually just let them hatch their eggs,and sell the eggs,or the day-old babies,and keep the adults

 

[holachicka]

You have some good questions and I'd love to hear the answers as well because I'm considering quail too! As far as your mom goes, my philosophy is that the food you buy at the store has led a tortured miserable life before slaughter, by raising your own food, you can take one step away from encouraging this treatment to animals, and give some a chance at a peaceful and respected life before slaughter. Just my way of thinking...

Good luck!

 

[Barred Rocks forever]

come on i know somone has a answer here

 

[yotetrapper]

You have a lot of questions. I'll answer a few, then I got to get ready for work. Go with corturnix. They're lay a LOT of eggs. Mine are in a rabbit hutch style pen, off the ground. They're eggs taste really good if you have the patience to break em all open lol. I'd keep about 20 for a main flock. Keep those year around, collect their eggs in the spring and summer, and incubate them (corturnix won't hatch their own) The ones you incubate, raise up for meat. As soon as they get full size, butcher them.

 

[CoopCrazy]

Quote:
I reccomend the Coturnix and all my answers are concerning them..
They dont really crow, more like a moo stick shaken really hard .. They arent very loud..
I keep all mine together until processing time which is 8-10 weeks.. Then pull out the largest for Breeding and eggs and process the rest..
My chickens dont bother my quail at all , i do have mine in raised wire cages though...
I keep mine for both eggs and meat.. My plan with my current batch is to keep two males and about 10 females as breeders .. That should average 8 eggs a day... I will seel or incubate based on orders / incubator space..
As far as your mom is concerned Coturnix have one of the highest feed to meat ratios, are very easy to care for, take very lil time to process and the only tools you really need to process them are something hard to wack their head on, a pair of scissors to snip off the head and a knife to clean up the meat.. I have only processed a few but it doesnt take more then ten minutes a bird and after this next batch it will probabaly more like 5 minutes... Let me know if you are needing some eggs or chicks soon as I will have plenty.. I have a 180 in the bator right now... Also on a side note you will need to purchase an incubator as coturnix are not good broodies...

 

[jen5680]

Well I tried raising some for meat and to me they are just not worth it!! The amount of meat that you get is so little! And they are just so cute and make the sweetest little noise! After my first batch I won't be doing that again but to each there own.

 

[Barred Rocks forever]

i have a incubator that holds 50 so i should be good on that so u just bop them then cut ? ive never processed before so im not sure of the system

 

[CoopCrazy]

Here is a link that Monarc made it is full of info... https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=102281 I will keep looking for the one on processing them .. It is very iformative , I used it to process my first...

 

[CoopCrazy]

Quote:
Yep Bop and Snip... The head comes off really easy and they only do the death shakes for a few seconds...