Coturnix Quail - Japanese Jumbo

[610Alpha]

Anyone looking at Jumbo Coturnix Quail as a meat and egg source? I found some interesting info on them.

Presentation

https://prezi.com/dzk_tyij4den/raising-quail-for-meat-eggs-condensed/

PDF - contains a bunch of info on raising them, time to harvest time to lay eggs etc. small space requirements make them great for urban areas and most of all the noise they make isn't recognizable unlike chicken.

BD-Ebook-quail-for-meat-and-eggs.pdf

I got the PDF from this page:

http://greatlakespermacultureportal.com/2014/01/raising_quail/

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

[610Alpha]

I bet you all have been on pins and needles waiting on me to post some pics...jk

Here is the gravity feed watering system I have set up currently. I am using vinyl tubing, hose barbs, gamma seal lid on bucket, and watering cups.



There are 4 females to 1 male in each cage. Tupperware feeder holds about 3-5 days worth of feed.



Dropping pan with wood shavings. I will be setting up a compost system to turn the droppings into a nice garden compost.

I bought 5 adults and 10 juveniles. The adult hens were laying on day 1 when I brought them home. The juveniles just started laying in the past week, they are producing more each day. I average 1 egg per day per hen.

The roosters do crow but its not like a chicken in that you wouldn't know what type of bird was making the noise. A chicken rooster is easily identifiable by its crow.

Meat run this spring. I will collect a few days worth of eggs and incubate them...~36-48. It takes 18 days, 8 weeks to grow out for meat harvest. 30 birds at 8 ounces = 240 ounces of meat in less than 11 weeks. Depending on your location this could easily scale if you used quail tractors or some other setup.

Chickens take ~12 weeks for broilers and layers take ~6 months.

[wwdnet]

Oh, they're cute! How is the cost benefit ratio looking? With Walmart only 2 miles away, it's hard to justify having my own layers when I can get 3 doz. eggs every other week for <$3. In a SHTF scenario, I could use my freeze-dried stash but there's nothing like whole eggs for the amount of cooking/baking I do.

[610Alpha]

Oh, they're cute! How is the cost benefit ratio looking? With Walmart only 2 miles away, it's hard to justify having my own layers when I can get 3 doz. eggs every other week for <$3. In a SHTF scenario, I could use my freeze-dried stash but there's nothing like whole eggs for the amount of cooking/baking I do.

Cost Benefit Ratio...hmm that's a tough one because you can't compare chicken eggs to quail eggs. I lost my quail due to predators late this summer early autumn. At the time I was using
DuMOR Chick Starter 24%, 50 lb. $14.69 at Tractor Supply - this is not an organic feed

****************** Cost Benefit Analysis *******************************

280 eggs per month....$14.69/280 = $0.052/egg but it takes roughly 3 quail egg to equal the same volume of one chicken egg so that would be $0.157/egg which equals $1.88/dozen in chicken egg equivalency. However this doesn't take into consideration the higher nutritional value of Quail eggs, the reduced risk of egg allergies, nor the higher premium that a person can get for quail eggs. https://www.marxfoods.com/ps/Quail you can see that they are charging $68 for 3 dozen eggs.

Ways to reduce feed cost: fodder, pasture them in a mobile tractor, possibly meal worm etc.

****************** Cost Benefit Analysis *******************************

Lessons I learned:

When pasturing them only move them once a day.
Either build an A frame tractor or use 1/2" x 1" cage wire for ground cages. Personally I am going with an A frame as this means I can house more of them in it and only move 1 tractor.
Get a quail egg peeler from alibaba or aliexpress.


I had 5 per 2' x 2' cage when they were in my garage. 1 male to 4 female, I was planning on hatching my own. They don't take up much space and the upfront cost is small, the 1" x 1" cage wire and 1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth aren't too expensive the pvc is cheap. Some of the supplies you might have on hand. The hens laid an egg every day for me except when I was moving them twice a day on the yard, I think chickens are close but not quite an egg a day.