Quail better than chickens? I'm beginning to think so...

tentoes wrote:
I have lots of wild guinea fowl running around my suburban area.

BenjaminBurchall wrote:
Are guinea fowl laud like peafowl? Peafowl make a heck of a cry that would get on my nerves if they lived near my house.

Emerson White wrote:On a perpound basis Chicken feed is much richer than cow feed. Additionally Chickens reproduce in a manner that lets you keep fewer animals for breeding stock.

If you measure calories of food in per calorie of food product out a cow lays on meat much much better than a chicken.

Conversion ratios for livestock

Animals that have a low FCR are considered efficient users of feed.

John Polk wrote:For anybody interested in starting raising quail, this e-book might be worth the investment:

http://www.howtoraisequail.com/

I haven't read it, but considering the costs of building a healthy flock, I would probably buy the book before I ordered eggs or chicks.

From my investigations of chickens vs quail, I see NO economical advantage for quail for a home flock.  If you have a market for either (quail) eggs or meat birds, there is a tremendous potential for profit with quail.  Without a market, it is merely an expensive hobby.

For comparative purposes, 1 chicken egg = 4 quail eggs.  Go from there when calculating start up costs, and cost per dozen, etc.  Quail may produce more eggs per pound of feed, but 4x?  Do your own research/math before making the switch...not everybody wants to buy quail eggs...most people do eat chicken eggs.  What is the market in your region?

Skandi Rogers wrote:

Eggs, it takes 5 quail eggs to equal one chicken so I need 5-6 times the number of birds. (a production chicken lays around 320 eggs per year quite a bit more than the 200 expected from a quail) I also need to crack 5x the eggs every time I make a recipe I also need to pick up 5x the eggs and wash 5x the eggs. that production chicken will lay well for 1 year  after coming into lay while a quail starts to slow down at 7 months, so yes a quail starts 14 weeks before the chicken but it also slows down 5 months before the chicken, meaning I need to raise more more often (or buy them)

Size, quail are TINY they are hardly a mouthful so if I wanted to eat them I need to kill, gut, pluck 10 meat quails for every meat chicken (160g vs 1.6kg) it's not going to be much faster if at all to kill and clean a quail than a chicken.

Sean Brown wrote:From what i just slogged thru reading this thread it all comes down to personal preference. I feel if you can you raise chickens for egg and meat for consumption. You raise quail to sell the eggs to pay for their and the chickens feed. You can supplement quail or chickens feed by harvesting seed crops for them, think gigantic magenta lambs quarter, amaranth and milo. The chicken are used , here, for meat and egg but  mostly for turning compost and leaves, ect into rich chicken dirt for growing plants. Please I do not wish to revisit the meat to feed ratio, i almost pulled my fee remaining hairs out.

carla murphy wrote:But if this hen would raise them, then maybe they would be more chicken-ish.  Any thoughts?

Laurel Finch wrote:

How big is she?  

Sunny is a full size Buff Orpington.  

I have a friend who raises quail for our Grange Youth project.  She said if I ever want to get into quail, she'd set me up.  I was thinking of getting day old chicks rather than eggs to put under Sunny.  I know even the quail chicks are fragile.  Sunny was super careful with her first adopted chicks. It was amazing to watch...yes, I spent many hours watching her in the hen house right there next to where I was tending the garden (or not!).  The hen house is raised about 3ft and the access is 4 redwood stumps at staggered heights.  At about day 4, Sunny ventured out of the hen house calling for her babies to follow.  They looked at the height and said 'no way'.  She popped right back into the hen house with them.  Every day she would encourage them and eventually they followed at about 8 days old.  The most beautiful part of having Sunny raise the chicks was that she integrated them into the flock.  The integration of new chicks raised in the brooder box with the established flock in the coop was the most anguishing part of getting baby chicks for me.  Chickens are not nice to newcomers.

What I've read about people who have been successful at having their quail incubate their own eggs is that the quail were given a more secure/natural/hidey hole environment in which to lay.  So I was thinking the hen house might provide that. Once we get going, the quail might self propagate...or maybe Sunny will raise more of them.  

Sunny is done raising her first adopted chicks (they are 4 months old).  She started laying again about a month ago.  And now she is making the mama 'bock bock' noises so I anticipate she will be broody soon.  I'd best contact my quail friend to see if I can put this theory to the test.

carla murphy wrote:
Sunny is a full size Buff Orpington.    

What I've read about people who have been successful at having their quail incubate their own eggs is that the quail were given a more secure/natural/hidey hole environment in which to lay.

So I was thinking the hen house might provide that. Once we get going, the quail might self propagate...or maybe Sunny will raise more of them.