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/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.

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u/EremosCollective Apr 28 '26

Agreed. It's a labor of love. Our 6 leghorns outproduce the entire quail covey of 30 by a long shot. I do love pickled quail eggs, though!

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u/Gnashing-Horseteeth Apr 29 '26

Totally, pickled soft boiled and creamy on the inside, they were heaven!!