It was my never my intent to go out and become anything. It was back at the beginning of the urban chicken movement. While I can remember at least one house in the town I grew up in that had chickens wandering about the yard, it just wasn’t that common at the time I decided to get a few hens. Our town was a suburb of a large metropolitan area and this was back before having city chickens was cool.
Fast forward and seemed like everyone was starting a garden and getting chickens, even the city dwellers. A lot of municipalities were moving to legislate how they would allow or not allow chickens. We had moved a little further out, but still in an urban area at the edge of the suburbs. Our city had decided to only allow chickens if you had at least 3 acres, which didn’t include us. We had more like a 1/10th of an acre, so chickens were a no-go. So I pouted around for a little while. Then I decided to actually read the city code and it put a crazy thought in my head. You see while the code was very verbose on the who, what, where, when, and why of chickens, cows, goats, and horses it was a little thin on others animals. It had a short list of animals that were strictly forbidden – pigs, ducks, geese, and guinea fowl. It allowed for pets, specifically dogs, cats, rabbits. The code had a final general section that required a special use permit for other domesticated animals, “except fowl which were covered above”. Hmmm….. So I thought there were lists of fowl specifically allowed or NOT allowed. One of my favorite sayings is “It is easier to ask forgiveness instead of permission”. While researching chickens I had seen references to raising quail and since they were NOT specifically restricted, I went for it.
There was a lot of good information on the internet about raising quail, but it was spread all over the place and didn’t really address the needs of small back yard quail keepers. So this website was born. I started documented my journey from knowing nothing about quail, to raising, butchering, incubating eggs, etc. It has been a great and delicious trip!
So now that I am “The Quail Man” what can I do for you? Feel free to ask questions in the comments of this post so we can all share in the answers or feel free to use the contact page to get a hold of me directly. If I dont have the answer I will do whatever I can to find out.
I’m going to give this a try this spring. I don’t know how to build a coop so I can’t raise chickens but maybe I can buy some rabbit hutches. Thank you for the information.
Your welcome! Good luck and keep me posted how it goes!
We are an existing farm with a rather unique approach to sustainability. A quick inspection of our websites (www.abbeyroadfarm.com and agrivinocartlton.com) provide ample description of the primary activities we have incorporated to make our project successful to date. We are now ready to take on what, by comparison, is a significantly larger commitment as we are intrigued and excited by the prospect of raising on a commercial level quail as well as potentially incorporating other “exotics” such as pheasant and possibly wild turkeys or other unique species.
Our farm was formerly as somewhat iconic horse facility located in the midst of Oregon’s Wine Country. At one time in the past the area was one of the principal turkey growing regions in the US and still today it is a major poultry producer for the likes of Foster Farms for example. The structure we have for housing the production we envision is a fairly substantial one. The principal building was formerly an indoor riding arena that is 170′ x 70′ x 15′ of clear span height. Connected to the riding arena are a series of 23 horse stalls (12′ x 12′ x 8′), two tack rooms and a horse wash rack. We have ALL infrastructure in place already including 800 watts of usable poser, natural gas supply, 5,000 gallons of water available daily, etc.
Needless to say, we have the physical ability to establish a pretty big operation but we significantly lack any experience and are seeking research information that will enable us to properly prepare ourselves to initiate the project.Thus, we are looking to begin by reaching out to all that may have useful information. Can you supply us with references and any research that you think may be of value to our project?
Thanks,
John
I have found a lot of great information from Mississippi State Poultry Science website
I myself have become addicted to raising coturnix quail, and at mid-to-late age I am utterly astonished!!! Started with an initial batch of roughly 20 about 3 years ago to currently raising 30-50 spring through fall and incubating eggs in the spring to start all over again!! Seriously I have never been this passionate about anything and am befuddled by the whole “quail thing” 🤣🤪