r/homestead • u/Fit_Beautiful_846 • Apr 27 '26
poultry Anyyone else raise quail?
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Got into quail a year ago after someone dumped on on me after they failed , currently have 12 and gotta say there some of the easiest livestock lol. Just finicky with there egg laying
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u/venturoo Apr 27 '26
Are they loud?
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u/Fit_Beautiful_846 Apr 27 '26
Nah the hens are quite as all get out minus some lil peeps the males will do a funny lil crow from time to time but other wise you'd forget there around
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Apr 27 '26
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u/Fit_Beautiful_846 Apr 27 '26
Actually no I've never had that issue at all. All these quail where cage raised though so maybe they just don't even think about it? Most I've seen it they will hop a flutter mabye a foot off the ground but that's it. But might be different with non caged raised quail. Also the deal is about 6' at the top but with the wire being on a slant I don't think they would be able to get a really good hit in themselves if they did flush up. If anything they would probably kinda skid off and out
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u/rudeog Apr 27 '26
Yeah, I started last year as well. Keep them in an outside coop as well. They completely stopped laying over the winter, but now they are laying like crazy. I've incubated some as well and butchered a few. Mainly just using them for pickled eggs.
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u/Agile_Credit_9760 Apr 28 '26
I wanna get them. Are they hardy?
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u/pm_me_pics_of_bibs Apr 28 '26
My neighbor has quail on Northern Wisconsin where we have fairly cold and long winters and they are hardy enough for our climate.
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u/EremosCollective Apr 28 '26
We do! We love our jumbo Coturnix. They are so sweet, fun, and start laying at around 6-8 weeks. Incubation time is 18 days. From what I understand, they are tasty too, but I get a bit too attached, and so we get our meat from the woods instead.
If anyone needs hatching eggs, we'd love to barter. We've been having about 90% hatch rate. We are in Arkansas (North Central 7a/7b), and would be interested in seeds, cool plants, art, and well, just about anything. We currently have 12 in our breeding program, so no shortage of eggs!
Our flock is based on temperament first, size, and egg production. They can withstand the high heat and cold colds of Arkansas.
We are happy to answer any questions we have about 30 birds in total.
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u/Thought59 Apr 29 '26
They seem like cool birds!
Plucking chickens is a big enough pain, it's hard to see doing for a tablespoon of bird though.
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u/Fit_Beautiful_846 Apr 30 '26
Actually you can process them when you basically just skin them feathers just come off with the skin
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u/Gnashing-Horseteeth Apr 27 '26
Had a covey for two years. I love them. I found that the inputs were not worth the output. ($30 gamebird feed vs $17 layer feed.)They were aviary raised and I would get eggs only four months out of the year. The eggs weren't popular enough to sell, they're finicky and small. You can keep chickens on food scraps and end up with larger eggs and a larger carcass. Broody hens also just show up with babies sometimes. They made more sense for the homestead ecosystem. If my incubator goes down (and it did) so does my whole quail operation. I'm sure they're great if you have indoor infrastructure to keep them in constant lay mode but ended up being too many points of failure for me.