Crazy, quail vs rat

[Bettacreek]

Well, I decided to take a deeper look into quail for the snakes here. I can keep a constant source of quail easier than I can rodents. Plus, if I for some reason cannot produce my own during a feeding session, I have a supplier ten minutes away, who's selling for $2/bird, vs $6 per rat. Anyways, people were concerned about snakes getting "addicted" to quail, yucky poop and nutritional content. The yucky poop, well, if you give a dog kibble all its life, then suddenly toss a whole chicken at it, it's going to have some pretty nasty poop too. Turns out, snakes that are fed quail on a regular basis don't have yucky poop, it's just that their systems are not used to it. On to nutritional content. Quail have less fat, more protein and more calcium as compared to mice (adult) and rats (juvenile). Other perks to quail? Quail are sexually mature in 6-8 weeks. They lay an egg per day year round. They don't eat much (that's an opinion, I have rats and quail, and the rats seem to eat more per rat than the quail, plus food is much cheaper for poultry than it is for rats). You *DO* have to incubate the eggs yourself, however, for $50 ONE TIME cost, you will have an incubator that should give you at least a 75% hatch rate. The electricity consumption of an incubator is minimal. Add to the fact that you can stagger a hatch, so that you can put in say 10 eggs one week, then 10 the next week, and you can hold eggs for a week without loosing fertility. That would make it MUCH easier to have proper sized prey at the exact right times. Caging is insane on these birds as well, half to one square foot per bird. Plus, these birds don't need to take time to nurse, wean and take break from litters, like rats need to. Rats would produce approximately 8-12 babies per litter, and should have one litter per 12 weeks, depending on your personal ethics. That would be one rodent per week. Quail can produce one egg per day, with a 75% hatch rate, in 12 weeks you could produce 63 quail instead of the 12 rats from a single female.
And, quail are ground dwelling birds, not flying birds like some seem to think. Yes, they CAN fly, but they generally fly a short distance, then run to safety.

Add to all of this that you can butcher them for your own dinner, or eat the eggs, and, well, IMO, you've got a perfect feeder.

Anyone else have any input?

[nybp]

i'm hungry. bacon egg and cheese anybody??

[Kaorte]

I think quails wouldn't be very practical for people who breed their own feeders. As you said, they need a ridiculous amount of space, and most people have ball pythons because they don't require much space in the first place. :/

[sg1trogdor]

Well If your willing to try it and can't find anything to tell you otherwise Go ahead and try it i guess.

[nixer]

a 50$ incubator wont work for quail eggs they have to be turned!
they also should be fed the same feed as chickens.
also they will fly but they prefer to run!
ive bred them before also many other animals

[JohnNJ]

I think quail are way cuter than rats. Go for it.

JohnNJ

[nixer]

a 50$ incubator wont work for quail eggs they have to be turned!
they also should be fed the same feed as chickens.
also they will fly but they prefer to run!
ive bred them before also many other animals

they also SHOULDNT be fed the same feed as chickens.
sorry for the typo

[Bettacreek]

You can actually spend $30 or less and make an incubator. And, yes, many people have used the $40 something incubators from Tractor Supply and had quail eggs hatch quite well. Sure, you can go all out and purchase a monster of an incubator (I'm buying a hovabator 1588 with autoturner and forced air for under $200), but you should get at least a 75% hatch rate with a simple $40-$50 stillair Little Giant.

Yes, they CAN be fed chicken feed. I keep quail already, I know. I, as well as numerous other people, use chicken starter or grower, with 20-24% protein with no issues.

[nixer]

Yes, they CAN be fed chicken feed. I keep quail already, I know. I, as well as numerous other people, use chicken starter or grower, with 20-24% protein with no issues.

ok dude here is the nutrient requirements of quail:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsc...ing_quail.html


and here is the one for chickens:

http://www.afn.org/~poultry/flkman9.htm

and when you sort all of that out youll find that alot of the requirements of the quail is some more than 2 times what a chicken requires!

[Bettacreek]

dude ask around, quail breeders use chicken feed all of the time. 24% protein is absolutely fine. Breeders use it all of the time without drops in production.

You can argue specifics until your face turns blue, but if it works without sacrificing health, production or anything else, then why insist?

Eggs need to be at 99.5 to hatch, but people have incubated and hatched out from 98-103 with 100% hatch results. Wild quail aren't having wild seeds, grains, etc analysed and balanced out to a perfect increment, and they survived and thrived for years without everything being exactly on the dot.