Interactive lesson

Quail meat and the yearly plan, step by step

Interactive lesson: choose the birds for meat, fatten the young males, get the equipment ready, process and chill the carcasses, turn the droppings into compost and plan the flock for the whole year.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Which birds go for meat

Meat isn't a by-product of quail keeping but part of the flock plan.

Half are males — Roughly half of every hatch is male. For eggs you only need a few of them.
Young males — Young males go for meat at 6–8 weeks. A male of a light strain weighs 110–130 g live.
Old females — Females go for meat after 12–15 months of lay. Their meat is for soup, stew and braising.
Weigh your birds — The carcass is roughly 65–70 % of live weight. At your first slaughter weigh 5 live birds and 5 dressed carcasses, and you'll know the yield of your strain.

Why: Roughly half of every hatch is male, and after a year the females lay half as much. Young males and old females go into the freezer, and young layers take their place. That way the flock stays young and nothing goes to waste.

Slaughtering after week 8 gives little extra meat, while the bird keeps eating and the meat gets tougher.
Two quail on the plate make a meal for an adult.

2. Fattening young males

Separate the males from the females by week 6 and fatten them in a compartment of their own.

Own compartment — Only males of the same age, no females, in a compartment of the aviary or in a cage.
Grower feed — Grower feed with 20–22 % protein, meat strains 22–24 %. Large strains eat up to 0.4 kg.
Light 14–16 hours — Keep the light on for 14–16 hours. Dimmer light reduces fighting.
Separate the injured — When space or feeders are short, the males fight. Separate an injured bird at once.

Why: Males without females are calmer, but they still fight when space or feeders are short. Good fattening is short: from week 6 to 8 a bird eats roughly 0.35 kg of feed.

Don't give them layer feed: they don't need the calcium and it dulls their appetite.
Space: 0.03–0.05 m² per bird in a cage, 0.1 m² in an aviary.