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Raising Quail
- Thread starter Mike-Mike
- Start date
I have hatched and raised quail in the past. Incubator to dinner plate was six to eight weeks or so. I feed them chick starter for two weeks then straight to game bird from there on. They are prolific egg layers. My birds were nice and plump at slaughter time. They shit like crazy though and can get to stinking pretty quick if left in one area to long. Not difficult in the least to raise. They will be nice and tender if you don't let them get to old. Older birds are kinda tough. Good luck with your birds.
Mass-diver
NES Member
GREAT thread, thanks for sharing!
Great work on this tractor Mike!
Thanks I made it from scraps around the house and 2 drawers from an old dresser.
Actually, the males do crow. Imagine it sounds like a mini rooster. If you got a lot of males they can get going pretty good. But loud......not rooster loud by any stretch. I don't think you would hear them if your indoors and they are outside away from your windows.
Some do. Bob whites for instance. My Coturnix quail have been quiet. You need to be like 5 feet away to hear them. They might make more noise during mating seasons so who knows.
With captive raised quail....it's ALWAYS mating season...lol. The second they are sexually mature they are non stop getting their groove on. The males are relentless and will tear the females up if the male to female ratio is lopsided.
1Cock per 3/4Hens works for most people but its a little trial and error.
In my experience raising them, one male can easily service six females and be happy. If the ratio is off females will exhibit bald heads and backs and in severe conditions can even have open wounds. Open wounds usually means the end of the bird as other birds will zero in on any bleeding and pick at the bleeding area until the bird eventually dies. Like Mike Mike mentioned, its a bit of trial and error but six to one has worked fine for me. Also, females usually only live approximately two years as egg laying takes a huge toll on them. Males live up to five years. If you are breeding them for eating they are ready at eight weeks. If you are breeding them for egg production they can lay well up to a year then will drop off dramatically. All of this has been my experience raising them and everyone else's experience will vary.
Just make sure they can get out of the wind.
Disregard spelling I will blame my phone.
Here is a pic of one of the baby quail. We have had between 45-50 hatch out so far.
Cool. I might need a lesson when I want to try a hatch.
They are cute little buggers when they first hatch. In about a week to a week and a half they will have their "ugly" feathers and will cease being cute. They gonna stink so try and keep their shit cleaned out. They are shitting machines......believe me! Are you raising meat birds or egg layers? Either way, good luck with them.
As you probably already know, the eggs are very nutritious....better then chicken eggs. Try not to get to attached to them though. Happened to me and I had a bit of a hard time "preparing" them for the dinner plate. Mine were hand tame and readily jumped into my hands as if they were pets. But they sure did taste good. Any eggs you save for hatching.....if I remember correctly....have a two week window to get into the incubator for highest success rate. After two weeks the hatch rate drops off dramatically. I don't raise them anymore. But at one time I was up to my knees in quail. Good luck with the birds.
So I think we are all done hatching. We have 62 little quail. That is out of 120 eggs. I think that is decent for my first run. I ordered the eggs off Ebay and they came beginning of Feb in a storm so who knows the conditions they were in or how fresh they were when I got them. Then my incubator thermostat crapped out and rocketed the temp to 105. I pulled the covers to keep the temp somewhat controlled and ran to Tractor Supply to get a new one. Going to try to rig the old one with a water heater thermostat and see if I can get it to work.
They hatched out over the course of a couple of days. Started Friday night and I think the last one was this afternoon. I am leaving the unhatched eggs for another 24 hrs to see if anymore hatch but I don't think any will. I thought that was interesting as to how long they hatched. I haven't hatched in a long time but I remember chickens seemed like it was a day tops for them all to hatch.
I figured I would list my expenses to date:
New Little GIant incubator: $40.00
Little Giant Egg Turner: $40.00
Fan for the Incubator: $20.00
Quail Rails: $20.00
The fan and quail rails came off Ebay. The incubator and Egg Turner from the local TSC. The fan is supposed to keep the temp even throughout the incubator. I think the turner and the quail rails are a must. You are supposed to turn the eggs 3-4 times a day. I don't have time to do that so it is set and forget with the turner.
The eggs were 41.00 from Ebay.
I have about 30.00 into the brooder. It is a 50 gal tub with a couple of small animal waters and shelf lining for the bottom.
50 lb sack of feed was $18. It is Poulin turkey starter with 29% protein.
SO that is about $200 to date for the whole mess. As long as my wife doesn't find out the cost I am quite happy. Most of it is a one time investment and the game plan is for these birds to give me the eggs for the next go round.
I am going to try to use lobster traps for my quail tractors. Cut all the nets out and line them with hardware cloth. Piece of tin for the roof and I think they will be good to go. I figure the traps are quite predator proof and easy to pull with the bridles. Plus in the winter I can set them on some sawhorses in the garage to keep the birds out of the wind.
They hatched out over the course of a couple of days. Started Friday night and I think the last one was this afternoon. I am leaving the unhatched eggs for another 24 hrs to see if anymore hatch but I don't think any will. I thought that was interesting as to how long they hatched. I haven't hatched in a long time but I remember chickens seemed like it was a day tops for them all to hatch.
I figured I would list my expenses to date:
New Little GIant incubator: $40.00
Little Giant Egg Turner: $40.00
Fan for the Incubator: $20.00
Quail Rails: $20.00
The fan and quail rails came off Ebay. The incubator and Egg Turner from the local TSC. The fan is supposed to keep the temp even throughout the incubator. I think the turner and the quail rails are a must. You are supposed to turn the eggs 3-4 times a day. I don't have time to do that so it is set and forget with the turner.
The eggs were 41.00 from Ebay.
I have about 30.00 into the brooder. It is a 50 gal tub with a couple of small animal waters and shelf lining for the bottom.
50 lb sack of feed was $18. It is Poulin turkey starter with 29% protein.
SO that is about $200 to date for the whole mess. As long as my wife doesn't find out the cost I am quite happy. Most of it is a one time investment and the game plan is for these birds to give me the eggs for the next go round.
I am going to try to use lobster traps for my quail tractors. Cut all the nets out and line them with hardware cloth. Piece of tin for the roof and I think they will be good to go. I figure the traps are quite predator proof and easy to pull with the bridles. Plus in the winter I can set them on some sawhorses in the garage to keep the birds out of the wind.
I pretty sure you know this but.........DONT BREAK ANY OF THE UNHATCHED EGGS!!!!!!!!
Handle with caution and dispose of properly.....somewhere away from the house.
Handle with caution and dispose of properly.....somewhere away from the house.
Well I have found the hatching to be the easy part. I feel like these chicks are less robust than chickens. I have lost 9 so far. They have food, water and heat. I did split them into 2 seperate brooders last night in case they were overcrowded. Maybe there was too much competion for the water and feed. They seem to like to sleep in a pile even with good heat so maybe it is the poor bugger on the bottom getting squashed. Either way I am hoping that this solves the problem.
boilermaker
NES Member
What is your target temp at this stage?
