The nice thing about quail is that they’re small, quiet, and prolific. From the time they hatch from the time they start laying eggs is around 6 weeks. They’re butcher size at 8 weeks.

Chickens need a lot of room to be happy and quail do not. If a quail had a square foot to himself he would be thrilled. I usually run one rooster to five hens although four hens is fine. If you have three or less hints with your rooster, he will overwork them.

Their eggs are very very nutritious higher in protein and less in cholesterol than chicken eggs. There are no known allergies to quail eggs reported in the United states.

The thing about quail is that most municipalities have no problems with them, but they do with chickens. My town of rapid City considers quail to be like pigeons and so there’s no limit on how many you can have as long as they have adequate room for the birds. Quail will be most productive for one year and then after that they slow down. So an average hen will lay an egg a day and that’s pretty good.

If I was to start with quail brand new, I would choose a singular variety because different birds sometimes pick on each other. I would also get feather sexable varieties so you can tell by 3 weeks if you’ve got boys or girls. They never taste old. Chickens, you’ve heard the expression of an old bird. Quail will always taste like pheasant. They’re very easy to butcher. It takes me about 2 minutes to feel dress one.

I think they’re wonderful for sharing and honestly probably great for bartering. If you need a resource to buy quail eggs, I recommend my Shire farms. They guarantee a 50% hatch rate when they ship their eggs. You will need an incubator. Unfortunately quail have been bred not to be broody, so they won’t sit on their eggs to hatch. So you will need an incubator.

I hope this helps you in your journey. I recommend jumbo katronics as a standard breed and you can get variations within that, such as a pharaoh. Good luck with it and I’ll pray you have fun!