Here are 10 reasons that you should be raising quail for meat and egg. Have you thought about raising poultry for your backyard? What if you get free egg delivery to your doorstep daily based? What if you just walk out of your back door and grab a healthy organic egg for your family? The quail is the best choice for you. Here are 10 reasons why you should raise the quail instead of chicken.
1. Need very small space
They need only 1 square foot of space per quail. They are happy to live in a confined space and feel much secure living in the small cages. Compare with other poultry, such as ducks, geese, or chicken, you only need to have a small space to raise quail.
Free-range chicken needs about 10 square feet per bird. Raising a quail is very efficient if you calculated the cost of meat, egg, and income source in your backyard and it takes up any pace at all.
2. Grow super fast
Female quail will start laying an egg within 8 weeks of age. They mature super fast and can harvest their meat when they reach 6 to 8 weeks old.
Compare to quail, chicken takes about 5-6 months for them to reach maturity for meat. So if you need a extra source of meat, this is a great option to have.
3. Give you fast egg
Unless they are stress out, quail hens lay egg daily basses and they will provide you with eggs for 2 years. Eggs are very delicious and it can be used for every recipe from baking to eating.
Even though quail eggs are smaller than chicken's egg, they are still a great source for daily egg consumption.
Here is a Nutrition Comparison between all the back yard poultry.
Nutrition Comparisons Between Quail Egg with chicken Egg, Duck Egg, and Goose Eggs
nutrition, here’s a comparison between quail egg with chicken, duck, and goose eggs:
4. The Best Meat
Quail meat only serves in high-end restaurants as a delicacy. Their meat is a rich flavor with succulent and juicy. If you have decided to raise them at home, you'll able to enjoy the high-end restaurant meat that was raised in your backyard.
Quail are smaller than chickens, ducks, guineas, or other poultry so you have to raise more than a chicken. But don't let that spot you from raising them back of your house. Because you can raise more quail and growth them much faster than chicken, it is more efficient and makes sense to raise quail than chicken.
With good space design of cage and life cycle of quail management, you can have a better Feed to Meat ratio than any other poultry.
5. Little Feed Cost
Among the whole poultry group, quail are the smallest and they don’t eat as much feed as chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Most of them only required to eat 10 grams of feed which is about the size of a paper ketchup cup from a fast-food restaurant. Less feed means fewer feed costs for you.
Quail only eat what they need to in a day. So you don't need to worry about over or underfeeding your quail. They will manage themselves to feed them.
6. Quail are Super Quiet
One of the main reason that chickens are not allowed in cities is that rooster tend to disturb neighbors
Roosters tend to crow early in the morning and it can be disturbing to neighbors.
But quail are super quiet.
Quail only coo quietly and you don't have to worry about y neighbor complaining to the city. Probably, your neighbors won't even know you have quail in the backyard.
7. They are Super Resilient
Quail don’t need many requirements as chicken do to flourish at the back of your house. Quail just need secure space, clean water, and proper food for them to live happily. When provided with a clean environment and proper nutrient quail are very resilient and don’t get sick often.
8. They consider not a Livestock
Many cities have ordinances again raise a chicken at the back of your house. Because they make a loud sound daily bases, it considered as livestock. But most cities do not include quail as livestock.
Check with your local ordinances and make sure, but you will probably be surprised to know that you can keep quail.
9. Easy to Harvest
Thinking about harvesting or killing your quail gives you little goosebumps. But compares to harvesting other poultry, it is very easy and humane. It just requires simple tools and takes less than 5 minutes for each bird. Also, they don’t have to be plucked with your hand.
10. Good Profit Margin
If you are considering starting a home-based business, maybe raising quail could be little side hustle that provides a little bit of money to ease the budget. There are many ways you can make money with your quail. You can sell eggs, meat, and the baby chicks for a quick buck.
Many local bakeries pay top dollar for fresh quail egg. Also, quail meat considers as a delicacy, restaurant owner wants to pay top dollar for locally harvested quail meat.
Post your quail on Craig's List and other commercial sites on the internet for breeding quail or for sale.
Also, baby quail is very hard to purchase and they will fetch a higher price than normal baby chicken. If you’re incubating eggs by yourselves, you can easily sell the baby chick around $5-7.