Coturnix Quail lay the largest Quail Eggs. That being said it still takes 5 eggs from my girls to equal 1 chicken egg worth. Do yourself a favor and purchase a cigar cutter or one of the scissor type quail egg cutters from
Amazon. The quail eggs are small and difficult to crack without a cutter. You can score the outside of the egg with a knife and then crack, but I find it easier to use the scissor type cutter.
Coturnix are very quiet. The boys do crow, but it's pretty quiet and sounds like a wild bird sound, not a Rooster Crow.
I personally chose to raise Coturnix over chickens because we wanted fertile eggs for hatching and although not prohibited where I live, I didn't want to anger the neighbors with constant rooster crowing.
Coturnix shine in many ways. They hatch in 16 days. They grow extremely fast and the girls start laying about 7-8 weeks. Birds are almost full grown in this timeframe also. I usually butcher at 8 weeks and my birds are 9-10 oz. My breeding birds are 13-14 oz, but they are also a year old. The extra couple of weeks of growth and feed cost aren't worth my time. Others may disagree, but our birds are very large and usually 3 fill me up for dinner.
We have 6 breeding cages comprised of 1 cock to 5 hens. I typically get 25-30 eggs a day in the summer. Right now with the winter darkness laying has slowed down, but the girls will pick back up soon, but I still get 20 eggs a day. I stimulate my birds with a string of Led Christmas lights in the winter for 4 hours each night.
My breeders are housed in individual 3'x2' cages and the birds have more than enough room to move about. I use automatic waterers outside the pens and feeders inside.
Chicken-Farmer
