What is the purpose of raising quail?

[MichiganWoods]

Seriously curious here. I was mainly interested in our chickens for e-gg production, but we will have the occasional rooster for dinner. Particularly with me hatching e-ggs.

How many of you that raise quail do so with the intention of eating them? Some gal, can't recall her name, posted pictures of processing her first quail. Frankly, it looked much easier than processing a chicken. How does quail taste?

 

[Guitartists]

My grandmother says they are DELICIOUS! I am thinking pickled quail e g g s are probably the CUTEST LOL And bite size

I am hoping to start some this summer

 

[MichiganWoods]

We love hard boiled e-ggs... that would be so cute!!

Ooooooooh all right... I know what's going into my bator next.

 

[joebryant]

MichiganWoods, ya know what... when I first came on BYC several months ago and saw where someone was raising quail, I just presumed that they were doing so because they were going to release them to the wild like I've often thought of doing. I almost flipped when I finally realized that they were EATING them.
Wanna hear something else DUMB? Four years ago, Anne and I stopped off in Plains, Georgia, to see Jimmy Carter's hometown on our way home from Florida. We were eating in a local restaurant and ordered quail for dinner. I presumed that the locals had shot them. In fact, I've thought that they had been shot until I came on BYC.

 

[new-roo]

Quote:
That is a good point, my daughter can say she had a 10 e gg omelet, and was still hungry.

 

[sandspoultry]

That's the only reason we raise them is for meat and eggs. Here in NC it's hard to sell them due to the game bird laws. The buyer has to have a game bird permit to buy them - can't tell you how many times people offer to buy them "under the table" , some understand when we tell them to come back with a permit others don't.

Anyway, we pickle the eggs, they are good in salads and great tasting meat birds. Basicly all they are is breast and small leg 1/4s (the leg 1/4's make really good buffalo legs by the way) You can process each one in a minute-ish once you get the hang of it.

Steve in NC

 

[NurseNettie]

I've been considering quail myself--- but not sure how the meat tastes. I also have thought about how cute the e-ggs must be-- I make a really nice pickled e-gg, and thought the jars would look awesome full of tiny e-ggs

However.. we have 3 cockatoos at home. DH says he can't possibly kill or eat anything that looks like or is similar in size to the 'Toos! Not sure I'll ever get them in this case

Edited while laughing very hard!! Even though I read some of the other posts about words being changed today.. I didn't get it until I re-read my post and said "hey, I didn't write that" LOLOL

 

[MichiganWoods]

joebryant, I totally believe you. For me, I never really gave it much thought.

new-roo,

sandspoultry, I'll have to look into what the laws are in our state, but I'm not really interested in selling them. I'm all about just providing for my family.

NurseNettie, I can understand not being able to eat them if you've got smaller pet birds. -- Yeah, it's quite interesting getting used to the A-Fs filters!

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
Some states are pretty lax from what we have been hearing but others.... NC is almost phobic about game birds. ?

Steve

 

[CrimsonRose]

We got ours mainly for the e g g s... My daughter doesn't like chicken e g g s... But will devour quail e g g s...

But we will process the extra roos and boy are they good... Hubby says they taste just like chicken but I think they taste like a cross between chicken and rabbit (not wild rabbit but cage raised) To me it's leaner than chicken...

I'm super slow at processing... (plus I'm not in a rush and take my time) and it take me less than 10 mins per bird... If I'm in a hurry I could do it in 5 mins... a chicken for some reason takes me over an hour! I'm sure super processors could do it in 2 mins it's really easy... Granted you need more quail to make a diner but considering how easy they are to raise... and only a small cage is needed instead of a large coop... They are a lot easier than chickens... Plus it fills my need to incubate e g g s...

Only takes about 10 weeks to grow them up... So I put in a new batch every 5 weeks and we can have 1-2 meals a month of quail! along with mini deviled e g g s! (Those are a major hit at parties)

It's so easy that I let my 6yr old help! We put up a post a couple of weeks ago in the meat bird section of how we processed ours...