Since I was a kid, which is longer than I like to admit, I’ve heard the phrase: “It takes birds to make a bird dog.” For years, I kind of scoffed at it. I grew up in Oklahoma in the 1960s and ’70s, when bobwhite quail populations were booming. Looking back, I didn’t realize how good we had it. You never truly appreciate some things until they’re gone.
A few years ago, I had a couple of young dogs I was training to be steady to wing and shot, along with some older dogs I was trying to keep fresh for field trials , and I went through quite a few pen-raised quail trying to do this. My area lacked wild birds, and access to where they lived was difficult. So, I was doing the next best thing—putting my dogs on as many liberated birds as possible.
However, I had become extremely frustrated. I had three or four different suppliers, but a call to them on any given day would yield mixed results. Most were also a 20- to 30-mile drive from my house, so the high price of diesel was also adding to the challenge of having birds on hand.
Perplexed, I decided to figure out what it would take to raise my own birds. That way, I’d never run short, I’d have plenty to sell to my training buddies and local field trial clubs , and maybe even make a little extra cash selling the meat and eggs.
To spare you the trouble, I’ll share what I learned and my decision regarding getting into the bobwhite business.
Producing quail and quail eggs requires room for lots of eggs and incubators. (Photo courtesy of Mark Chesnut) Deciding to Raise Quail Mike Mate is the owner and operator of Wildkat Quail Farm near Okmulgee, Oklahoma. During a visit to his farm to pick up some birds for training, I struck up a conversation with him about raising quail, what it takes to succeed, and what those looking to get started should consider.
“Honestly, I just liked the sound of their whistle,” Mate told me when I asked him what made him begin raising quail. “My grandpa was a dog trainer, so we always had quail growing up, and when he passed away, I wasn’t around them anymore. I guess I was just missing that from my childhood. My plan was to just get a few and have them back here where I could hear them whistle.”
Of course, as such plans often do, Mate’s idea of having just a few birds around to enjoy personally quickly turned into a much bigger venture. Upon retiring from the fire department, Mate had more time to devote to his quail project.
“After talking to a few people, I realized there was a big shortage of birds, and for a lot of quail farms in Oklahoma, the owners had retired,” he said. “I saw the opportunity there, and we tried raising quail.”
Flight pens are necessary for raising quail to strengthen their wings so they can be used for dog training. (Photo courtesy of Mark Chesnut) Get Started Raising Quail for Yourself Mate and his wife started out by buying 600 quail chicks to raise. Chicks were fairly cheap—typically about $1 each—so the investment wasn’t overly large.
“We bought them in the wintertime and started raising them, and by spring, they were laying eggs,” he said. “We were getting way more eggs than we could handle, so we decided to sell a few of the eggs. And it really just took off from there.”
Shortly thereafter, Mate had a quail breeder from neighboring Missouri call. That breeder told mate that his egg producer had retired and wanted to know if Mate was interested in stepping up.
“He asked me if we could produce eggs for him,” he said. “We weren’t really set up for the quantity he was wanting (14,000 eggs a month). My wife and I just made a decision to invest some money and build some facilities for egg production, and it kind of took off from there. Once people realized that we were raising quail, we had several people call wanting birds to release on their own property for hunting in the fall.”
Now, Mate is raising more quail and eggs than ever. And he’s selling about as many of both as he can produce, given his facilities.
“We sold 50,000 eggs in 2019,” he said. “But that year we only sold about 4,000 birds. We planned to sell about 15,000 birds the next year, but with Covid, everything was just weird. So, we had to slow down a little for a year or so.”
Raising quail requires some up front investment to have the proper facilities and equipment you'll need. (Photo courtesy of Mark Chesnut) Producing Quail Eggs and Raising Quail Chicks To determine whether raising quail is an option for you, it’s important to understand the life cycle of quail.
“For a typical year, we’ll hold our breeder birds over the winter,” Mate said. “We keep them on the ground in flight cages because they’re just healthier if we do that.
“In March, we put them in the breeder cages. Then, we start introducing them to 16 hours of artificial light a day. We do that over about a week’s period of time.”
Mate said that timing is important because quail producers in his area typically want to start getting eggs around the first of May. It takes about three weeks for the birds to start laying once they are exposed to the 15 to 16 hours of light a day.
“The first eggs will be pretty small, so they’re not any good because the fertility is really low in those first ones,” he said. “It’s about five weeks before you start getting good viable eggs that you can actually save. Our first egg orders are right around the first of May, and about that time is when we start setting aside eggs for ourselves, too. We set every Friday or every other Friday, depending on how many orders we have and how many extra birds we want to have that aren’t pre-ordered.”
The eggs that Mate plans to keep for the birds he will raise go into his incubators. He has eight incubators, each capable of holding about 1,500 eggs. The eggs remain in the incubator for approximately 21 days. After that, Mate transfers them to a hatcher, where the hatchlings will have more space once hatching begins.
“They usually hatch on day 23 or 24, and they go straight to the brooder,” he said. “We keep them at 100 degrees starting out and decrease the temperature by 5 degrees a week until they are feathered out. When they are five or six weeks old, they can pretty much be away from the heat after that.”
At six to eight weeks old, the quail are moved to flight pens where they can develop their flight muscles until they are ready to be sold to hunting preserves, ranch owners, dog trainers, field trial organizations, or those who want them for food.
“A flight-ready adult is around 12 to 16 weeks,” Mate said. “Most people want them at 16 weeks. But as far as people stocking their ranches, they’ll want them as early as five weeks old.”
Mate continues to sell birds throughout the summer and fall. As summer comes to a close, he’ll take stock of how many eggs and birds he wants to produce for the following year, allowing him to determine how many to retain. Then the process begins anew.
Quail eggs can be sold for hatching and raising quail as well as for food. (Photo courtesy of Mark Chesnut) What is the Market for Quail Meat and Quail Eggs? As mentioned, Mate generates most of his revenue by selling eggs to other quail producers, who raise the quail and sell them to customers. Additionally, he sells a significant number of flight-ready quail to those who use them for dog training or hunting releases, as wild bobwhite populations have sharply declined in many areas in recent years.
“There also seems to be a growing market for food,” Mate said. “I get calls for people wanting them for an alternative meat.”
In fact, many people regard quail as one of the tastiest game birds. The lean meat is succulent and quite healthy.
“When the pandemic hit, about February and March, I had a buddy in Alabama who had 12,000 birds left over and he was selling every one of them for meat,” Mate said. “People were stocking up because of everything that was going on in the grocery stores.”
Raising quail for butchering and stocking your freezer with healthy protein is a viable alternative. It’s another excellent example of self-sufficiency in growing your own food while adding more variety to your diet.
And according to Mate, the eggs are also in high demand for food.
“For a smaller farm, eggs are a good bet,” he said. “There is always a market for quail eggs on the internet. A lot of people claim they are a lot healthier, so many people buy them just for eating.”
Cons of Raising Quail One note of caution: Not only are quail highly susceptible to disease and predation, but raising them requires nearly constant care, so diligence is essential.
“Disease is probably your biggest potential problem,” Mate said. “From the day they’re hatched, we treat them with antibiotics like coccidiosis, the big one when they’re young.
“And, once you get some numbers, it’s literally like running a dairy. You can kiss vacations goodbye unless you hire somebody to come in and take care of things.”
Best Advice for Raising Quail Mate said raising quail can be very rewarding. And, if done right, there can be at least some profit involved. However, he cautions against starting out in a big way.
“Start out small, with maybe 20 or 30 birds, because there is going to be a huge learning curve,” he said. “You’re going to lose birds. There is a pretty high mortality rate from hatch to raising them out. It’s like any other animal: If you don’t handle death very well, it’s not going to be for you.”
Mate said that despite raising thousands of quail and eggs, he is still learning new things about successfully raising the birds.
“We’re trying to grow slowly,” he said. “One mistake that I hear a lot is that people try to grow too quickly but don’t realize what is involved, and they end up losing a lot of money. There is a huge investment when you start building flight pens and really all the stuff involved. So, my advice is to start small and grow slowly.”
My Decision After visiting Mate and observing his operation, I found many compelling reasons to raise my own quail for training. However, I ultimately decided that the negative factors outweighed the positive aspects.
Having worked on a few different dairy farms as a youngster, I completely understood the everyday requirements. As much as I travel for field trials and hunting, I chose not to leave yet another aspect of bird-dogging for my wife to manage while I’m away.
Finances were a factor as well. With the cost of birds increasing by about $1 each over the past few years, I was eager to save some of the money I was spending on training birds. However, the initial investment needed, particularly for flight pens, meant I could buy 100-200 quail for the next several years.
Please don’t let my decision influence your opinion. I hope the information presented here assists others who are considering raising their own quail for training and profit in making a more informed decision than they could have prior to reading this.
