Raising Jumbo Coturnix Quail For Meat and Eggs
About 3 weeks ago, we published here on Steemit, a video about how we went and got our GQF cabinet incubator. One of the first big incubations we did were quail. We underestimated the hatch rate and ended up hatching a lot more than we had planned. So, we turned a cage we had on hand in to a quail cage to support all the extra quail. You can watch below on how we went about doing that.
After building the cages, we ended up unstacking them and moving them to the side of one of our buildings. This made poop collection a lot easier because it just fell to the ground and we didn't have trays to empty. Once we did that, we noticed how much food they were wasting. When quail eat, they fling their heads back and forth, spreading feed everywhere and causing quite the mess. So, we figured we would jump on board with the simple no-mess feeder idea. Things didn't go as planned, but they still worked out in the end. You can watch that below.
Now, we keep our quail on pasture in a John Suscovich style chicken tractor. It does it's job, but because quail are so small, it is still not really adequate for moving quail around every day in. It usually takes 3 people to move the quail. One inside to herd them from getting ran over. One outside catching the quail that escape. And one to pull the tractor to the new location. It's a mess, but for now it's working. We really believe in the concept of grass fed and pasture raised animals. I shall be looking into a different type of quail tractor in the near future, but until then, we will just keep doing it the hard way.
You can read about our pasture raising quail experience here: https://steemit.com/homesteading/@squareonefarms/pasture-raising-quail
We plan to extend our quail operation, but that doesn't mean they will always be on pasture. We may end up having to do the whole cage thing (which we hate), but only time will tell. Thanks so much for tagging along and reading. Follow us to hear how we continue this quail journey along with so many other journey's we are taking.
Until next time...
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