thinking of raiseing quail for meat and eggs

[Barred Rocks forever]

why cant you just skip the bop and cut ?

 

[CoopCrazy]

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If you can keep there head still long enough to cut(they are fiesty when you are trying to hold them) .. go for it.. I personally would rather have them stunned before I cut as I dont want them to feel any pain.. When you hit the head the neck goes rigged and you can snip much easier...

 

[Bettacreek]

Yes, I would say not to bother trying to just cut. I've tried holding a head still to clean junk out of an eye before, and it's not easy. You'd need three hands to cut a head off, and I assume that your mother isn't going to lend that extra hand, lol. You really don't bop them hard, just hold them with your thumb on their breast and fingers around the body to cover the wings. The bird should be facing you. The force is really just slightly more than gravity pulling your arm down. You don't want to crush their skulls, just knock them out. They'll go limp and their necks will stretch out, making it very easy to get shears in place. There's maybe a teaspoon of blood that will come out, and they're not violent shakers, just a little bit of vibration.
Hens should give you an egg per day. Rarely will they miss a day. If you have 20 hens, you should get 20 eggs per day.

Just do one breeding group, either put the eggs in the incubator or put them in the fridge, depending on whether you want to eat the eggs or grow them out for meat. That will make them more versatile.

 

[crazyaboutchickens]

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[Sir Birdaholic]

I've got 59 Ga.Giant eggs in the bator, hatching on 6/8, so I'll find out how it is to raise them. I tried Pharoahs a couple of years ago, but wasn't happy with their size after butchering.

 

[GBov]

We just started a colonie with 9 hens and three roos. Saved up the first 25 eggs for the bator and the rest have gone into the fridge for eating and they are super YUMMY! Either a whole bunch broken into a bowl and tipped into a frying pan for dinky fried eggs (Mmmmm) or boiled (also Mmmmm) or my new favorite way, as many as will fit into the body of a chicken and then roast the chicken. The egg whites becomes really meaty!

The only problem I have is 9 hens dont lay enough eggs for 5 people lol.

Havnt processed any for meat yet but a nasty little roo is for the chop, he just blinded one of the hens in one eye today

 

[JJMR794]

geese'n'chickenlovr :

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

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