# Coturnix Quail



## WV Farm girl (Nov 26, 2011)

I've been looking at coturnix quail. What I'm reading is saying they are basically an excellent SHFT fowl. Quiet, excellent feed to egg/meat conversion and mature at 6-8wks. Does anyone have any experience? What about feeding them from homestead products? The only thing that I'm really concerned about is game bird feed requirements. I want to be about to feed them at least half their diet from what I can raise. 
Any input would be appreciated.


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## Homesteader (Jul 13, 2002)

I don't know if you can grow the protein requirements for these little guys yourself? I am sure someone has probably done it, but they do require high amounts and if you don't meet their needs they will not thrive. 

Now in a shft situation you would do the best you could of course.

We have grown them but fed them purchased game bird feed. They were easy to dispatch, just kitchen shears needed. Very flighty birds, they were always so scared of us. Delicious meat, three fed the two us (I am a petite gal so one was always plenty for me).

You must have a tall pen so they don't bash themselves to death flying up.

I didn't have much luck with getting eggs mailed in and incubating them, so we would get day olds shipped, they did great. Then, we would incubate from their later eggs.


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## WV Farm girl (Nov 26, 2011)

Thank you for your reply. I have a semi-local source that I have found so am going to get a starter flock from them. I am going to start with 6 I think and a smallish pen, then when we get moved into my husband's house, I have a 8x6x4 dog kennel I was thinking about using for them. Unfortunately for me the house is located with close neighbors so I am desiring a poultry that is very quiet and won't attract to my attention from nosey neighbors.
I am going to use gamebird feed to start but hope to find a way to feed from the WV homestead. I have plenty of land down there to experiment with growing foodstuffs. It might not be possible, but I hate to be tied down to the grid.


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## praieri winds (Apr 16, 2010)

a good thing for you to do is how to raise coturnix and also backyard chickens web site can also help lost of info here as well


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## Homesteader (Jul 13, 2002)

As to the noise, while it's true they are not a loud as a rooster, they can be quite noisy from what I recall. The hens make a noise often. We had our first ones in the city very VERY close neighbors, track homes, and there was no question we had something that crowed. No one ever complained lucky for us.


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## KIT.S (Oct 8, 2008)

There are things you can grow with a high protein content, peas or field peas have 28% protein. But you'd have to figure a way to cut, roll or chop the dry seeds.

I had really good luck hatching quail eggs, but what I did have difficulty with was temp control. Last time I had around 70 chicks in a 4x8 rabbit cage, it was up to 100* outside during the day, but they would crowd under the heat lamp at night and suffocate the ones on the bottom of the pile. Had to put in 2 lights to spread them out.
They're quick and easy to butcher and taste great. We pickled limes and used them and their pickle juice as a brine that was very successful.
Kit


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

I raise quail within city limits and it is true that they are quite easy to care for. However, it is the males that crow and the females barely make any sound at all. The reason that they are so good in a SHTF situation is that their crowing blends in with the other natural bird sounds. Most people don't know what a quail sounds like, so they dismiss it in the same way that they would ignore the sound of a dove or a starling.

The birds eat very little and mature in 6-8 weeks, so you could effectively slaughter your excess males to keep the crowing to a minimum. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of ways that you can get an adequate amount of protein into their diets. When I have run out of quail feed, I have fed my birds chopped boiled eggs, chopped nuts and the tiniest varieties of bird seeds. They also LOVE bugs, so you can raise mealworms for them, too. Mine also liked amaranth, but I had to raise them with it to get them to eat it. They can be a bit finicky about trying new foods once they are grown.

Here is a link to an article that I wrote for Backyard Poultry Magazine:

http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/5-2/smooth_quailing/


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## WV Farm girl (Nov 26, 2011)

Thank you all for the input! I can use all the advice I can get. I want to be informed and go about this correctly. The breeder that has the quail is raising 6-8 in a 18x18x24" pen. Does that sound right for space requirements?


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## Homesteader (Jul 13, 2002)

I will say that I had trouble with them bashing their heads flying up, they fly straight up. I am glad it's working for the breeder, the proof is in the pudding and your mileage may vary. That small a cage height wise didn't work for us.

I remember before we had our barn all done, we took a large rabbit cage, cut the ceiling out of it, replaced it with a section of small wire, like, we made the entire cage taller that way. It worked great.

We put them in the freezer starting at about 7 weeks of age, got the first eggs at about 5 weeks.


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

As Homesteader said, they are good at smacking their heads. I do have about 4 birds in a cage that is the size that you describe, but I can't imagine keeping 6 in such tight quarters. I don't keep a lot of quail because we don't actually eat our birds. We raise them for the eggs. While I've had as many as 30 at one time, I now have only about 15 birds. This keeps us from getting too many eggs.


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## NamasteMama (Jul 24, 2009)

I had them and got rid of them as fast as I got them. My reasons for getting rid of them were..


1. They stank to high heaven! OMG the smell was unbearable. If you dont have a lot of land your going to smell them despite best care practices. 
2. They ate more than my chickens, they wasted a lot of feed, and all I got was a few tiny eggs a day. I never killed one to eat, I haven't gotten up the nerve to butcher yet.

The crows of the roosters were nice and bird like though. I much prefer chickens, if you can have them go with chickens.


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

That is very interesting, NamasteMama! Did you have them in Arizona? I would think that the heat would dry out the poop resulting in very little odor. I keep my birds on small wire mesh with no bedding during warm weather. The poop falls right out of the cage through the bottom.

Unfortunately, my cage rests on pallets, so it takes two of us to move the cage, move the pallets and then rake, before putting it all back together. I do this twice during the warmer months.

It is true that quail will waste feed if you let them. I have found that if I give them the "right" amount of feed, then they don't waste it... It's too precious! I got to that point through trial and error. In the winter, I give them a bit more feed and only feed them every other day. This helped me to train them to get out and scratch through the pine shavings to find their spilled food.


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## DEKE01 (Jul 17, 2013)

I haven't raised quail but I do have chickens and as bad as chicken poo smells, the coop has almost no offensive odors. Deep bedding is the trick. Any wood chips, spent hay, grass clippings (not a think layer because matted grass can add to the smell), pine straw, shredded newspaper all soak up the smells. 

There is also research that shows that the microcritters in deep bedding will replace something like 30% of the standard diet with no ill effects.


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## oth47 (Jan 11, 2008)

My son raised them for a while..we built the pens low so they couldn't get up enough speed to bash themselves very hard.I was surprised at the amount of noise they made,not like chickens,but noisy at times.The eggs are big for such a small bird but still tiny in comparison to hen eggs,even small ones.Son said he wouldn't do it again.


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## NamasteMama (Jul 24, 2009)

TheMartianChick said:


> That is very interesting, NamasteMama! Did you have them in Arizona? I would think that the heat would dry out the poop resulting in very little odor. I keep my birds on small wire mesh with no bedding during warm weather. The poop falls right out of the cage through the bottom.
> 
> Unfortunately, my cage rests on pallets, so it takes two of us to move the cage, move the pallets and then rake, before putting it all back together. I do this twice during the warmer months.
> 
> It is true that quail will waste feed if you let them. I have found that if I give them the "right" amount of feed, then they don't waste it... It's too precious! I got to that point through trial and error. In the winter, I give them a bit more feed and only feed them every other day. This helped me to train them to get out and scratch through the pine shavings to find their spilled food.


 You would think it would dry out in AZ, it did mostly, but it still stank to high heaven. We tried mesh, stank, I tried sand stank, we were finally on kitty litter before I said this is ridiculous and got rid of them.

This was despite cleaning twice weekly!


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

TheMartianChick said:


> I raise quail within city limits and it is true that they are quite easy to care for. However, it is the males that crow and the females barely make any sound at all. The reason that they are so good in a SHTF situation is that their crowing blends in with the other natural bird sounds. Most people don't know what a quail sounds like, so they dismiss it in the same way that they would ignore the sound of a dove or a starling.
> 
> The birds eat very little and mature in 6-8 weeks, so you could effectively slaughter your excess males to keep the crowing to a minimum. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of ways that you can get an adequate amount of protein into their diets. When I have run out of quail feed, I have fed my birds chopped boiled eggs, chopped nuts and the tiniest varieties of bird seeds. They also LOVE bugs, so you can raise mealworms for them, too. Mine also liked amaranth, but I had to raise them with it to get them to eat it. They can be a bit finicky about trying new foods once they are grown.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the link. I enjoyed your article.


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## WV Farm girl (Nov 26, 2011)

I took the plunge and got 5 coturnix tonight. Thank you for all your input and support!


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## Sanza (Sep 8, 2008)

I'm in my 2nd year of raising quail and love those little birds and their tiny eggs. Last winter I had them in a 6' X 6' greenhouse with a sheltered 16' X 8' yard (under a couple blue spruce) and used bird netting for the top and it was soft enough to not hurt them if they flew up. I didn't give them any extra heat, but lots of wheat straw for them to burrow into and they survived just fine in our Alberta winter. The feed I give them is a mixture of layer feed, wild bird seed, and wheat because game bird feed is not available around here.


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## WV Farm girl (Nov 26, 2011)

The coturnix quail I was able to get are a little under 1yr old. 2 jumbo hens and the rest standard. So far so good. I've gotten 1 egg so far. I'm a little disappointed about that but from what I've read it could take a couple weeks for them to acclimate to their new home. They will eat nothing but game bird feed. When I offer them greens or veggies they look at it like its poison. Lol. 
Hope I get eggs soon!


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## AngoraLove (Sep 9, 2013)

I had a bunch of quail, now there are only two left. They both have the mottled feathers on their breast. One is a tuxedo so there's the white band across the chest instead of being completely mottled. I had a male, but a very nasty female pecked him to death. Today I'm hearing the hallmark quail call that they make. Is it possible one is a male? Do females make this noise? The male died about 1.5 weeks ago and we are still getting eggs. I haven't seen any matting going on though.


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## Homesteader (Jul 13, 2002)

When we had them, the hens made a good amount of noise. But it was very different from the crow of the males.


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## snowcap (Jul 1, 2011)

we have quails. But we won't winter them. we'll get eggs in the spring and breed them again next year.


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

AngoraLove said:


> I had a bunch of quail, now there are only two left. They both have the mottled feathers on their breast. One is a tuxedo so there's the white band across the chest instead of being completely mottled. I had a male, but a very nasty female pecked him to death. Today I'm hearing the hallmark quail call that they make. *Is it possible one is a male? Do females make this noise?* The male died about 1.5 weeks ago and we are still getting eggs. I haven't seen any matting going on though.


Female quail don't crow. The male crow is very spontaneous. They sort of shout. My males sound like they are yelling AFLAC!!! The hen's make more of a softer cooing or twittering sound.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Give them LOTS of floor space but they should only have about 9 inches of head room. I never had head bashing with the lower head room as they couldn't get up much speed. Put a worm bin under the wire cage and add shredded paper, grass clippings, wood chips, etc to it and you shouldn't have an odor and won't have to clean it. Use the worms to supplement the quails' diet. They MUST have animal protein in sufficient levels or they will cannibalize each other. You can grow millet and oats for them as well. Don't feed corn as the protein levels are too low.

Put a small light in the cage. A solar light works well. It will attract insects that they will eat in summer.

Be sure to give them a pan of sand to dust bath in. They will also appreciate a pan of grass to nibble.


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