I will preface this by saying I am by NO means an expert on raising Coturnix, having only gotten into them this year and still experiencing a large learning curve. Though they be birds, they are certainly not chickens nor do they behave as such. However, as I get attuned to their eccentricates and needs, I find myself thinking I should have gotten them a long time ago, and so I will share with you what I've learned so far. I don't recall how I first came to second glance Coturnix, but whatever caught my attention held it through about a month's worth of watching every Youtube video I could find on raising them. Bred for domestic production, the Japanese Coturnix comes in a bit larger than native quail and takes to confinement substantially better. There are over a dozen colorations, each with it's own name, and even a Celedon that lays blue eggs, but typically the largest of the bunch are the Jumbo Wild and Texas A&M Whites. Myshire Farms records 14 oz at 10 weeks of age with their Jumbo Wild I believe. Feather sexing is possible on some color patterns, on others you'll have to vent sex, which involves turning them over and pushing where their vent is. If it's a male, he'll foam you. It's kinda gross. Chicks need 27-30% protein feed for the first 6 weeks, either gamebird starter if you can find it, or turkey starter if not. After 6 weeks you can switch the freezer bait to a meat bird feed of 18% and the layers you'll be keeping to a layer crumble for chickens. Hens will begin laying speckled (or blue) eggs around 8 weeks of age, tho some of mine were laying at 6 weeks. They are remarkably prolific, and my husband swears some of them are laying an egg every 12 hours because we're getting a stupid amount of eggs with precious few hens. Hatch to freezer date is 8 weeks, though unlike chickens you can butcher them at any age without them getting tough. The hens will lay reliably for their first year, after that they taper off and quit. Total lifespan is about 2 years. I bought 60 eggs from a woman in Amarillo who is raising them in her in-town backyard, a mix of Italian and Jumbo Wild. Picked up an old styrofoam incubator from a friend who apparently never thought to clean the gross thing, got 3 thermometers and a hydrometer, and crossed fingers. One egg turned into a bomb, but despite issues keeping the temp/humidity stable, ended up with 41 chicks hatching. They are SO TINY!!! Kept them in the house for the first 4 weeks because that was the -12F time period. If you look closely you'll see one of them is inside the feeder, in the jar. Then out to a 6' long stock tank brooder until they were old enough to start separating. Interesting things I learned. Quail chicks often lie flat on their sides with their legs stretched out behind them, looking dead as can be. They're not dead, they're just silly how they sleep. They are massive slobs and throw their feed everywhere. The hens sound like either frogs or crickets, depending on what they're discussing. They are super aggressive if not happy with their conditions, and will kill and even eat their pen mates until you correct the issue. The rule of thumb is 1 male to 4-7 hens, no more no less, but even then I have some evil ones who entertain themselves by tearing others to the bare, bloody meat. The eggs really are worth peeling for hard boiled, because they're just the right size to pop in your mouth whole. (instant pot 1 minute pressure on egg setting) They make awesome scotch eggs, or you can batter dip and deep fry them like they do in SE Asia. Pros You can raise them in town without the neighbors knowing what you've got. Super fast time from hatch to production/freezer Small, take up little space SO much poop for the compost heap. Cons You HAVE to use an incubator to hatch. They will not set a nest. You can build one pretty cheap tho. They're kind of assholes. SO much poop. If you keep them in a cage it needs to be no more than 12" high because they're nutty and can fly straight up and break their necks against their ceiling if it's high enough to give them room to build up speed. OR, you could give them a more natural setting like an aviary, which I suspect we will be converting over to soon. I reconfigured some rabbit cages into quail layer cages. They work but I am not super happy with them and don't think my quail are either so we're pen to paper on a new setup atm. The Asian quail keepers have them crammed like sardines but mine were killing each other at half their stocking rate. Who I learned from Coturnix Corner Myshire Farms NY Coturnix
Ah, Quail are some of the best eatin birds there are, just awful small! I always like them in a red wine and sour cream sauce and braised lightly!
Heathens !!! I cut a crown in the top of a boiled egg, Give it a liberal bath with La. hot sauce and take a half a bite. Repeat process on the second half, Wash down with cold beer.
We have several species up here, but only the western Bobwhites are any good for eatin, still, I wouldn't trade one of them for a whole chicken, no way!
I ended up with 12 hens total, but 2 had a wry neck and one had a crossed beak so I only kept 9 layers. I got 15 eggs yesterday, but neither of us can remember how late we gathered them the day before so some could have been left over. I'm going to count how many I get between 7 pm last night and 7 pm tonight. I read that it isn't the norm but it's not unusual for a young, healthy hen to lay 2 a day. They sell special scissors to cut the eggshell, need to get me some. I certainly wouldn't replace my chickens with them but if I lived in a large town or city where chickens were prohibited, Coturnix would be an ideal livestock to raise. There's a couple of breeders on YT who swear that you can get almost all females by only hatching the round eggs and not the pointed ones. Seems like hocus pocus to me but next time I set the incubator I'm going to try just the round ones.
