Great prepper poultry
Contributors to this thread:Community
From: spike78
05-Aug-16
When you read about livestock to raise you hear about chickens, goats, rabbits, etc. I recently bought 4 coturnix quail and let me tell you I think it is one heck of a good prepper livestock. In 3 days I already have 8 eggs from my 3 hens. They lay up to 300 eggs each a year, incubation time 18 days and are full grown in 6 weeks and laying eggs in 7-8 weeks. Just from my 3 hens I can have about 200 chicks by November. Besides size (13-16 oz) they beat chickens in every aspect. Just curious if anyone here has raised quail before? The domestic type beat out wild quail for many reasons although I may add some wild quail for the fun of it. The best part is that you don't need a large pen.
From: itshot
05-Aug-16
4x3x8x3x300=large pen
JK, hope it works out!
From: Owl
06-Aug-16
Rabbits have the best feed to mass conversion as I understand it. 7-8 weeks to butcher weight, too. With a little acreage and a couple of "rabbit tractors," I think feed would largely provided free of cost. I can't remember the proliferation rate but it is close to 50-1(doe) oer annum.
Your stats on the coturnix are equally as impressive. How do quail eggs taste?
From: spike78
06-Aug-16
Owl, I'm not sure yet as I have all of the 8 in an incubator. I read they are tastier then chicken because the have a higher yolk to white ratio then chicken eggs.
From: HA/KS
06-Aug-16
What do you feed the quail? Do you grow their food?
Are you properly armed to protect your quail flock from starving neighbors?
From: spike78
06-Aug-16
I'm feeding them a game bird feed high in protein. I would like to figure out a supplemental feed. Right now it's $16 for a 50 lb bag and with these guys it's lasting awhile.
From: Owl
06-Aug-16
This morning, my brother and I just finished butchering his meat birds (chickens)Thinking of this thread, I would definitely suggest getting an auto plucker! Though I have no idea if the body weight of a quail carcass is enough to affect the friction required to extract the feathers. Maybe dumped en masse it would work well.
From: spike78
06-Aug-16
Owl from what I read your better off just skinning and not plucking.
From: memengako
06-Aug-16
Back in the day, growing in the farm. My elders dunk the birds in scalding hot water. The feathers comes off with just a mild tug and all the skin parasites (chiggers) are toast. If the water is too hot, the skin comes off with the feathers in patches.
From: Owl
06-Aug-16
We scalded at 150 degrees. Plucking isn't hard at all but it is, by far, the most tedious part of process.
spike78, Skinning is a breeze but so much nutrition and flavor gets lost in the offal pile. JMHO
From: spike78
06-Aug-16
Owl, I hear you as the skin is my favorite part of the bird all crispy with seasoning yum.
From: HA/KS
07-Aug-16
spike, if the object is survival you will NOT discard the skin. You also will not be able to go to the store and buy feed.
From: Owl
08-Aug-16
It's possible to pasture chickens 100%. No feed necessary. There will be a higher attrition rate to predators but the prospect of having zero feed cost and nutritional benefits 100% foraged meat is worth it. Of course, one must have a small parcel of open acreage. Fencing is beneficial but not wholly necessary.
From: JacobNisley
08-Aug-16
I bought 20 2 day old coturnix chicks last winter and raised them in my basement. They are hardy little guys and all survived to adulthood. I ate most of the males soon after they were mature and kept 2 of them along with the 12 hens. I never did get around to incubating the eggs, I just ate them. I was getting about 75% laying without any supplemental lighting, and where I live surrounded by woods they should have had extra light to reach peak laying. They eggs are good, maybe a little richer than chicken eggs because the yolk/white ratio is higher. It takes 4 or 5 quail eggs to equal a large store bought chicken egg. I personally don't think they are worth raising purely for meat because they are so small. Think of the body size of a barn pigeon. They are fun to have around though for sure and don't take up much space and are pretty quiet. They males crow (more of a trill) but its not obnoxious. A couple of mine got loose and they only fly about 20 ft at a time. Have fun with them!
From: Mike the Carpenter
08-Aug-16
I gotta ask...Raised in the basement???? Didn't it make the whole house smell?
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Owl, I do like that idea but they wouldn't last long in my backyard. I got the quail so the neighbor wouldn't have to listen to roosters every morning. Jacob, how were the birds to eat, I haven't tried one yet. X2 Mike, they sure poop ALOT.
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Here's my Quail.
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Here is the eggs in the incubator. I'm up to 12 now in 5 days. It's gonna be iffy on these as my incubator temp is fluctuating a lot with the summer temps in the room. The first 6 eggs got up to 104 degrees one day. We shall see. 11-12 more days to go before some hatch.
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Oops forgot the pic
From: JacobNisley
08-Aug-16
Yeah I raised em in the basement and still managed to sleep in bed every night:) When they are newly hatched chicks they are about the size of your thumb so I put papertowels on the wire bottom of the cage with sawdust on top and just changed it out every week or so. If I waited too long the basement smelled a little but it generally wasn't a problem. The sawdust removes the moisture pretty effectively and the smell goes with it. They taste good, I'd say just like dark meat on chicken. The breast meat is dark too, and about the size of mourning dove breast.
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Good thing as the dark meat on a chicken is my favorite part.
From: Ace
08-Aug-16
Spike, a couple of thoughts:
Make sure that you keep the humidity level up in the incubator, if you don't the chicks will stick to the shells and you will have far fewer survive. Also the thermometers that comes with those types of incubators are notoriously inaccurate, I'd suggest that you get a decent digital one.
You may want to collect enough eggs to fill the incubator before you start, otherwise you will have them hatching out at all different times. Since you have to remove the egg turners just before hatching, that will be a problem when some of the eggs still have a while to go.
From: spike78
08-Aug-16
Ace, I thought of all those things and yeah I'm trying to figure out what to do about the turner. I was kicking myself a few days ago and not spending the extra couple bucks for the digital thermometer and hygrometer. I have been adding water but I don't know what the humidity level is. We will call this my test batch and I will admit if they hatch I may be surprised!
From: Sixby
08-Aug-16
We buy free ranging chicken eggs. The folks have a real neat setup of a pen that is framed and framing around bottom but no bottom screen. They just pull it around the property when the chickens have exhausted the bugs in the area that they are in.
God bless, Steve
From: Shuteye
08-Aug-16
I always waited until I had enough eggs to fill the incubator or at least a tray. I had a crank that I could turn to tilt a whole tray of eggs. I always upped the humidity a day or so before they were due to hatch. With duck eggs I actually sprinkled water on them when they were due to hatch. If you temp gets a degree or two high, they will hatch a day or even two days early.. After the first week I would candle some eggs to see how they were doing and throw out the bad ones.
From: JacobNisley
08-Aug-16
I'd say their greatest flaw in being true prepper birds is the fact that they hardly ever get broody and hatch a clutch of eggs. You would need to keep a couple bantam hens around to do the hatching for you in a true off-the-grid situation because you couldn't use an electronic incubator.
From: Shuteye
08-Aug-16
I have used chicken hens to hatch duck eggs. The mother chicken goes crazy the first time the baby ducks jump in a mud puddle.
From: Owl
09-Aug-16
Sixby, that set up is called a "chicken tractor." They're pretty neat.
From: LINK
09-Aug-16
I've raised meat chickens and currently have 20 egg chickens. I have thought about the rabbits but it's hard for me to spend the time and money on rabbits when I can pluck a steer out of the herd or more preferable go shoot an elk. If your quail taste as good as wild birds I might would be interested in that. What about some sort of chukar or pheasant?
From: spike78
09-Aug-16
Link I will be picking up chukar in a few weeks. The only problem with wild birds like chukar and pheasant is that they only lay eggs in spring and summer and then it takes longer for them to mature then quail. I guess the only pluses are that you can sell them to bird hunters and dog trainers and they grow bigger then quail but it takes a lot longer so the plus could still be with the quail. An interesting thing to note is that my domestic quail can lay all year where as wild quail still only lay spring and summer like pheasant and chukar.
From: JacobNisley
09-Aug-16
Yeah the domestic quail mature very quickly. Most of them will be laying by about 7-8 weeks old. I think my first egg was 6 weeks and 3 days old.
From: HA/KS
21-Aug-16
From: spike78
21-Aug-16
Is that back when our government may have cared about us?
From: Owl
21-Aug-16
That's a pretty cool ad.
From: venison
21-Aug-16
Spike78, I use ground pig feed for my meat chickens. Ground pig feed is high protein and is a lot cheaper than the high protein chicken feed . Pig feed at farm elevator is 17.00 for 100 # . My layers still get regular chicken feed, but they don't eat like meat chickens .
From: Jim in Ohio
21-Aug-16
Reading with interest your experiences with "back Yard Poulty" as we call it in the business.
My wife and I were full time chick sexors, actually poultry sexors as we also did turkeys, ducks, and even a few pheasants and quail.
Our job consisted of going into hatcheries that we contracted with and separating the day old baby chicks etc by sex. It is a highly skilled business, requiring a lot of experience to do the job correctly. It also had to be done immediately after they hatch and before they were fed.
During the heyday of huge leghorn layer hatcheries, we would handle over 2 million birds a year. I figure during our over 40 year working career, we handled over 80 million birds.
We still work some but nothing that would keep us from enjoying our retirement. Was glad to see the boom in "backyard poultry raising" which started in the year 2000 when people thought the world was going to end. This is our favorite kind of work, as it is seasonal, pays well, requires the highest skills, and we are treated much better then the big commercial laying or turkey hatcheries.
Don't raise any birds as we like to travel too much now but do buy our eggs from an Amish neighbor so we can get the much better tasting eggs from range chickens.
If any of you are interested, look up Ridgway Hatchery on the internet. Get their catalog and you can buy all kinds of chicks and other poultry and anything you need for your back yard poultry raising.
From: Owl
21-Aug-16
Good to have a recommendation beyond McMurray, Jim, thanks.
From: spike78
21-Aug-16
Just had the first one hatch!
From: JacobNisley
22-Aug-16
Post some pics with some object for scale so guys can see how tiny the little buggers are...
From: South Farm
22-Aug-16
I have nothing to add other than if you've ever had farm-raised chicken you could NEVER eat that Gold-n-Plump crap again! YUCK!!! I don't know what it is, but it ain't chicken.
From: Jim in Ohio
22-Aug-16
Right, and the same with eggs.
From: spike78
22-Aug-16
Here it is. The little bugger is non stop for a pic so I took it in a 6 inch plate. I can't believe in four hours that thing can run and jump!
From: spike78
22-Aug-16
Horrible pic with the red light. I will try for a better one.
From: Owl
22-Aug-16
Cool, spike78!
From: spike78
22-Aug-16
spike78's Link
Here's a better one.
From: spike78
22-Aug-16
Damn it. Didn't work
From: HA/KS
02-Sep-16
HA/KS's Link
"Poultry plunge nothing to crow about"
From: Jim in Ohio
03-Sep-16
Yes they are some of the stupidous people to raise chickens. If you haven't got the guts to chop the head off an unwanted chicken and make chicken soup out of it, don't raise them.
From: Zbone
03-Sep-16
Anybody try to raise Bobwhites to release? I miss the call of the Bowwhite after the winters of 77-78 killed them all off around here, and thought about trying to raise a few to release but from what I here is hard to obtain a wild strain commercially that can survive the winters in northern latitudes....
From: spike78
03-Sep-16
Zbone, from everything I read bobwhites are scarce due to habitat as they seem to be hardy in the winter. They are even getting scarce down south. eBay has a ton of people selling bobwhite eggs and you would need an incubator.
From: Zbone
03-Sep-16
I shoot preserve pheasant and quail with family and friends every year, sometimes two or three times a year... Am not wanting to raise Bobwhites to hunt, only to stick around and listen too... I think I have adequate habitat behind the house they would do okay, if I can rid all the wondering cats, but don't want the hassle to incubate, wanting chicks hardy enough to survive winters here... Something like wild strain from Kansas or the Dakotas...
From: spike78
03-Sep-16
Their is a Wisconsin strain, can't get anymore north than that.
From: Zbone
03-Sep-16
Got a hatchery name, THANKS?
(sorry, didn't mean to high your thread)
From: Shuteye
03-Sep-16
I heard Bob White quail this spring for the first time in many years. We used to have them by the thousands and they disappeared. Sounds like they are coming back.
From: HA/KS
03-Sep-16
I think that the demise of trapping and the loss of bobwhite are closely related. However, as America has become overgrown with trees and other woody plants, bobwhite habitat has been reduced.
From: Jim in Ohio
03-Sep-16
Ridgway Hatchery in LaRue, Ohio has bobwhite quail.
From: Zbone
03-Sep-16
Jim - Will those birds from Ridgway Hatchery survive Ohio winters? ...Thanks
From: HA/KS
03-Sep-16
Zbone, there is little evidence that any pen raised birds survive and thrive when released.
From: Jim in Ohio
03-Sep-16
Yes, I wouldn't know.
From: Shuteye
04-Sep-16
Pen raised quail can do quite well in the wild if done correctly. I used to stock quail. I would deliver 100 quail to a farmer and he had pens out in a lespedeza field. He had several large pens out in the field. For a week or so the quail would be in the pen, which had no bottom so they could eat grass and lespedeza. He fed them some grain. After the birds were used to the new surroundings he would release the birds except a few that he kept in the cage. He had a funnel on the side of the cage like on a fish fyke. In the evening, the quail would return and go back inside. The ones left in the cage would call out to the ones on the outside. In the evening he would block off the opening to keep critters out.
I used to trap and call foxes to keep their numbers down. In the Spring there would be quail nests all over his several hundred acres so they made out just fine. The reason for stocking was he and his brothers did a lot of quail hunting.
From: HA/KS
04-Sep-16
Shuteye, the quail never established an independent breeding population in that scenario.
From: Zbone
04-Sep-16
Johnnyhouse.... Yeah have read up on this process and was the way I was going to try, even bought materials, but as said, couldn't find commercially bred wild strain birds to survive... Most game farm strains aren't built to survive...
From: HA/KS
04-Sep-16
Zbone, if you could get them, trapped wild birds are the way to go. However, if the habitat is right, the birds would probably already be there.
From: Zbone
04-Sep-16
Trapping wild birds would be illegal, besides there hasn't been a wild bird in this area for nearly 40 years, as said reason I'd like to try and start some around the house, miss hearing them, reminds me of my youth...8^)
There used to be bunches of wild coveys around when I was young, but the winters of 77 - 78 wiped them out, about statewide... I hear the DOW is reintroducing a few in certain areas of the state, but its small scale... I think they were getting the wild birds from Kansas on a trade, but don't quote me on that...
BTW, ruffed grouse are getting scares around here too, and no it's not due to the down side of the cycle... If ya ask me, when wild turkeys move in grouse seem to disappear, but that's a whole nother subject and didn't mean to highjack...
