I have most of my Coturnix Quail setup operational now, so I wanted to commit a week to describing my setup, go over the parts that I made, how I made them, and why I decided to make my own bits and pieces rather than buy them.
I’ve mentioned many times how I favor quail over chickens, and for many reasons. I’ve almost decided that I’ll be getting rid of my ducks and chickens, in favor of quail and rabbits. I’m not 100% yet, but I’m mighty close to it.
I can get more meat with less hassle by sticking with the quail. Since I rarely eat chickens, this is an unfair comparison, however, since the quail can outproduce the chickens when it comes to eggs vs space and feed required, suddenly my reasons for keeping the chickens becomes rather weak.
As for the ducks, they require almost zero maintenance, and while they do poop everywhere, far worse is that they get into my gardens and eat up my veggies, as well as all my fruit bushes and trees. I could fence them out, but this becomes a hassle too.
So by eliminating the ducks and chickens, I can regain some of my backyard, fill in some empty spots with more fruit trees, and most importantly, keep my wife happy. With the rabbits and quail only, I’ll still have eggs and meat produced, as well as being able to expand my fruit and vegetable production.
Most of my setup is home made. Ive used the same setup for chickens, ducks, and quail, and there is no reason you couldn’t use the same setup for any other bird, as far as I know.
So, in ramping up my quail program, I’ve fired up my home made incubator. The first 17 days of my contact with the quail is as an egg, in an incubator. I’ll be going over how to make one tomorrow. I will also go over out of pocket costs vs a store bought model.
The first 21 days of a quails life out of the egg is usually in a brooder. I’ll be covering how my brooding setup works, how I made it, and some alternatives. I will also go over home made waterers and automatic feeders.
The final 21 days until full grown is in a wire cage. I’ll cover my cage setup, what has worked for me, and what hasn’t and what I learned from it. This is the time of the quails’ life that I will also start to get eggs. I’ll go over egg production, as well as consumption.
Finally, I will be touching on harvesting, selective breeding, and cooking. By the end of the week, you should know pretty much my entire process, see how simple it is, and be able to decide for yourself if this is something you want to look into.
For now, I want to let you know that I had 16 eggs in my incubator, and that 12 of them hatched out Saturday.There is also an order of 50 eggs on its way here to be placed in the incubator as soon as they arrive. This will be enough to get me up and running without any other outside inputs, at least as far as fertile eggs good.
My breeding stock will have originated from three separate sources, so I should have decent genetic variety in my bloodlines for multiple generations…..
I have set up an old Android phone as an IP web camera, and if it is currently running, you can see a live stream below. If it’s not, check back I’ll try to keep it up as much as possible over the next week or so.
Tomorrow, how to build an incubator for under $20.
Until then, consider finding 6 square feet of space, and be on the lookout for an old Omaha Steaks Styrofoam cooler…. The space is all you need to raise quail, and the cooler is a key ingredient for a DIY incubator.
Peace,
db
As always, please “like” FloridaHillbilly on Facebook, subscribe to my feed, follow me on Twitter, add it to Google+, Pinterest, Linkdn, Digg, and/or tell your friends! The more folks that start growing their own grub, the fewer folks to tell you, “I’ll just come to your house if it gets bad“.
Need something from Amazon (and who doesn’t)? I earn a small commission from purchases made when you begin your Amazon shopping experience here. You still get great Amazon service and your price is the same, no matter what.
My hubby is thinking about getting quail also. Currently we have 4 chickens that are 1 1/2 yrs old and we have 4 chicks that are 4 wks old. Once the chicks are old enough to be with the older chickens my hubby wants to convert the small coop to use for quail. We have thought about raising rabbits and talapia but, haven’t done either…we aren’t sure about the cost effectiveness?
Cost effectiveness will be determined on the value you place on wholesome protein that you raise yourself. You really cannot compare rabbit meat or tilapia meat that you buy in a store to what you can raise and maintain your own control over. The end product you produce will almost always be a better product than you can buy, and if not better, it will at least be as good. Nobody will care for your food as well as you will, knowing that you will be eating it eventually.
I probably have $3-4 per pound in my rabbits, not factoring in cost for setup of cages, or the return I get from selling/trading furs, meat, live animals, and manure. Tilapia can grow well in a barrel from kitchen scraps.
There is an amazing feeling when you can go into your yard, pick enough greens, radishes and tomatoes from your garden for a salad, along with some green beans as a side dish, then cook up some rabbit/quail/chicken/duck that you raised yourself, and have a side dish of fruit that you also grew in your yard.
Eating a meal that is 99% grown by you will liberate you.
Oh my goodness ~ the baby quail are just precious!! I’m really looking forward to this series of posts. I’ve always had a fascination (obsession?) with wanting chickens but never thought about any other type of bird to raise. And if these require that much less space I really may be able to do this sooner than chickens.
Oh and on the rabbits ~ I saw someone giving away a hutch on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago, but we couldn’t get it for lack of vehicle. Big bummer ~ but maybe one will find it’s way to us sometime. We’d love to raise rabbits for food (and cat food since she’s on a raw diet) as well.
Look through my site under “quail”, you’ll find a lot of information. They really are a great stealth method of producing your own eggs. One word of caution though – the eggs have a rather tough membrane when you try to crack them open, so I STRONGLY suggest picking up an egg opener like you see at sushi restaurants. You can see one here:
http://amzn.to/ZI78ys
They make opening the eggs SOOOO much faster and easier!
And once again let me tress that the quail eggs we get taste just like the free range chicken eggs we get….just smaller, roughly 3 or 4 quail eggs to one chicken egg.
As to the rabbits, I’m a firm believer in wire cages. Avoid anything wood, as rabbits have a habit of peeing on everything. Wood soaks up urine like a sponge, and will cause unpleasant odors and harbor bacteria. Watch Craigslist for small wire dog cages with the pull out pan. The make passable rabbit cages.
Like this:
http://amzn.to/13Ns7Xr
You can buy decent wire cages for a little less, but these re fairly common, and WILL work….Gotta love repurposing!
Thanks for stopping by and the kind words!
Update on the video feed. The service keeps dropping, I’ve tried two cameras with the same end result.
I apologize, and will keep trying to sort it out, so it may or may not work for you. If it doesn’t work for you, please try it again a little later.
me and my friends want to start a quail business.. can you help me with some question..
1)how many period take to an egg hatch by using incubator?
2)how old quail until we can known it as adult quail?
3)how to classify quail like quail use to eat, quail use to lay egg and such as..
All the information you need, and more should be here:
http://floridahillbilly.com/quail-links/