Interactive lesson

Your quail plan, step by step

Interactive lesson: decide what you want from quail, choose a strain, work out the number of females and males, buy healthy birds and have everything ready before the first night.

Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Quail: why and how many module. Already bought? Unlock

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The whole lesson as text

1. What you want from quail

Before you choose a strain or a number, decide what the quail are for.

Eggs only — Females of a light laying strain, no male. Laying drops after 10–12 months, so renew the flock every year.
Eggs and meat — A larger strain, males and an incubator. Half of what hatches is male, and they go for meat at 6–8 weeks.
Start small — The first time, start with 10–15 females for eggs, no males and no incubator. In three months you learn feed, light and cleaning.
What they can't do — They can't be let out free-range: they fly off, and a cat catches one in a minute. They don't hatch their own eggs, so for chicks you need an incubator.

Why: The goal decides the strain, the space and whether you need an incubator. Fifteen birds live on two square metres, and the first egg comes at six to eight weeks old.

A quail is not a “small hen”: it needs more protein, more light and a different kind of housing.
Bring in hatching and meat birds in your second season, when you know how many eggs and how much meat you need.

2. Strains of Japanese quail

Homesteads keep the Japanese quail, not the wild common quail of the fields.

Japanese layer — Adult female 120–150 g. Most eggs and least feed, but little meat.
Pharaoh — Pharaoh 180–250 g, in North America often sold as Jumbo Brown. For eggs and meat. In Pharaohs the sex shows in the breast feathers at 3 weeks.
White and golden — English White, Tuxedo, Italian and Manchurian Golden, 150–200 g. For eggs and meat, but harder to sex by feathers.
Jumbo for meat — Jumbo and Texas A&M White, 250–350 g. Grows fast and eats more, but lays less.

Why: Strains differ in colour, size and laying. Names and weights vary from seller to seller, so the figures are rough.

The wild common quail is protected by law (in the UK specially protected): it is not caught and its eggs are not taken. North America has no wild Coturnix.
Many keepers run two groups: lighter layers for eggs and a larger strain for hatching and meat. The groups are not mixed.