For my friends doing quail farming, here is a complete guide on Quail Farming Business
Housing:-Quails housing can either be dip litter (floor pens), colony cages, or individual cages (battery cages).
The housing t should be designed to ensure comfort
for the birds, make food and water readily accessible and to permit easy and effective sanitation.
Quail houses should have proper ventilation system so as to allow proper flow of air and light inside the cage and it should be out of the reach of wild animals and other predators. One of the advantages of raising quail is the relatively small space that is required. The required floor space for adult quail is 145 cm Square per bird on floor pens and 125 cm square per bird on cages. If kept outside, the quail will stop laying eggs during the colder period but if kept inside under good conditions like enough space, food, temperature above 16ºC (61º F) and enough light, the quail would normally lay around 280-300 eggs in a year. In the wild, all quail devote much of their time to scratching and foraging for seeds and invertebrates on the ground.
Domesticated quail do not change that behaviour and strongly prefer a solid floor with litter to a wire floor so that they can use the litter for scratching, pecking and dust bathing.
In most cases, the common type of quail housing is colony
cage system in which birds are kept in cages and provided with beddings which is mostly wood shavings which are important for moisture absorption. The beddings should be turned over regularly to avoid wet spots which can be sources of diseases.
Feeding:-Availability of high quality feed is a pre-requisite for improved quail production and productivity.
To ensure the quails are healthy, growing proper and are highly productive, they should be provided with balanced feed regularly.
The basic factors affecting the supply of quality feed are its price, availability, the quality of raw material used, processing methods, handling and storage of mixed feeds, among other factor. An adult quail consumes about 20 to 25 grams of feed daily. Adult quail requires 7 cm of feeder space per bird
Feed in quail farming is the single item that represents the highest cost of production.
Regarding feed, you should always note that quails farmers have to rely mainly on manufacturers’ advice.
Quails should be provided with fresh, clean and readily accessible drinking water at all times with a minimum of 0.6 cm of trough space per quail.
The watering system should be cleaned and disinfected frequently.
Breeding:-Proper selection of breeding stock is important because starting with undesirable breeders end up with undesirable offspring.
The best breeding stock can be selected by buying only from reputable breeder dealers; purchasing chick quails for future breeding stock that conforms to size, shape, and colour according to the species; purchasing eggs with uniformity in size and shape and selecting birds that show best growth, stamina, and feathering. The type of breeder to rear is determined by the market. Larger birds are desired for table meat while smaller birds lay better than larger birds. Using the same breeders for more than one laying season can lower egg production, fertility, and hatchability with weaker offspring, and
Less disease-resistant birds. Culling should be carried out throughout the laying season.
In order to prevent inbreeding, unrelated breeder stock should be introduced at least every third year and this can be achieved by exchange males with another breeder who has an unrelated strain, purchase new birds, or buy eggs and raise new blood line.
The Quail can be bred upon attaining maturity at the age of 6-8 weeks. For successful breeding and hatching of eggs, one male should be kept with three female quails.
Presence of adequate light is highly recommended for desired egg production from quails. By providing artificial light for 14-18 hours breeders can be brought into egg production at any time and maintain production throughout the year. Males not
Required for breeding, or any quail being grown for meat production, can be given only about 8 hours of low-intensity light per day. This is not enough to initiate sexual maturity; therefore, the birds do not expend energy on fighting and mating and will tend to fatten more quickly.
Egg production also depends on breed, house hygiene, temperature, feeding,
Water, care and management. The small breeds of quails are used for egg production. The larger
Varieties usually lay fewer eggs than the small varieties and are used for meat. With proper care, hens lay 280-300 eggs in a year. Their productive live is one year two months but their life expectancy is 2 to 2½ years.
Domesticated quails loss their instinct of nesting and therefore never incubate their eggs. Quail chicks can be produce by hatching their eggs using broody hen or artificially through using incubators.
Where incubation is defined as the management of fertile egg in order to ensure satisfactory development of the embryo in the egg to a normal chick.
Incubation:-An incubator enable the farmers to control as to when to incubate the eggs unlike the natural way of incubating through the mature quails in which one have to wait for the birds to start brooding.
The most desirable eggs for hatching are those that are clean, free of shell defects, fairly large and with good shell quality. Egg hatchability is reduced by storage beyond seven days, using eggs from young breeders or eggs of near the end of the laying cycle. For successful incubation, several factors such as temperature, humidity, ventilation, turning, egg position and sanitation should be carefully controlled. The incubation period for quail is 14–18 days.
The humidity of the incubator should be 55-60 per cent and this should be increased to 80-85 per cent on the 14th day during hatching. The temperature of the incubator should be maintained at 37.5-38 degrees centigrade throughout the incubation period. Candling is done on the 7th day to identify the fertilized eggs and died eggs should be discarded. The eggs are turned at an angle of 45 degrees Celsius either manually or automatically from day one to the fourteenth day. This is done so that the eggs get even heat, to prevent the York from sticking on the shell and to keep the embryo in the middle of the egg. After hatching, the chicks
Are left for1-2 days in the incubator to dry before transferring to the brooder.
Quail chicks should be sorted in the hatchery to remove any weak or abnormal ones. In few cases, especially when chick prices rise, chicks are not sorted at the hatchery resulting to low productivity.
Brooding:-Newly hatched quail chicks should be brooded. Brooding is the provision of warmth to the newly hatched chicks in order to ensure satisfactory growth.
Brooding involves providing warmth, high quality feed, clean water and protection during the first 2-3 weeks of a quail chick’s life.
Heat is confined to a particular area for the chicks using hovers or brooder boxes which keeps the chicks in the vicinity of the heat, water and feed. Brooding can be carried out in floor pens
With either litter or raised wire floors. Stocking density in the brooder is 10 birds per square foot.
Several days before the chicks’ arrival, the quail brooder house should be prepared by cleaning and disinfecting. Regardless of the season, the brooders should run for at least 24 hours before chicks arrive, and the litter temperature should be approximately 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Brooder temperatures should be reduced by about 5 degrees per week until 70 degrees F.
Egg Production:-Breeders should be maintained in a comfortable, well-ventilated environment. Temperatures should be kept between 65 and 85 degrees F to achieve acceptable feed conversion and production levels. Research indicates that temperatures lower than 65 degrees F will increase the
bird’s energy requirement, which will lower feed efficiency and reduce egg production. At temperatures greater than 85 degrees F, feed intake is often reduced, which may also lead to reduced egg production.
The life cycle of quail generally take two to two and a half years. Culling should be done regularly to the breeders. Culling is the removal of sick, injured, unproductive and poor producing birds from the flock. The advantages derivable from
culling of birds are: prevention of spread of diseases, increase in the quality of the stock, more space is allowed for the remaining birds, increase in profits principally by reducing feed required to produce a dozen eggs.
Although poultry farmers have diversified to quail farming both farmers and staffs are not equipped with necessary knowledge and husbandry techniques to handle them.
To pace with this increasing demand, effort must be intensified towards increasing the level of production and marketing of quails.
Diseases:-Diseases are less in quails than in to other poultry birds. Most of the common quail diseases are
Caused by organisms which the birds pick up from the ground or from contaminated droppings.
While quails have a certain degree of resistance to some diseases, they are prone to some poultry diseases and pests.
Quail are more sensitive to mismanagement than chicken therefore good management practices are vitally important in preventing and controlling disease.
There is no medications which are approved for quail and there are no disease preventive vaccines.
Farmers should implement sanitation and bio security procedures which are inexpensive way to reduce the possibility of a disease outbreak.
Bio security includes:-
• measures that prevent the entry
And survival of viruses,
• bacteria,
• parasites,
• fungi,
• insects,
• Rodents, etc., into a bird flock.
Any of these agents may endanger the health of a flock, regardless of age.
There are no quails vaccine and Medication in the market.
External pests like lice, flea and mites might be noticed and they are controlled by use of sevins dust.
Some various organisations, companies or individuals are empowered to control animal diseases and pests by various legal statutes but there is inadequate capacity to
handle emerging animal diseases and out breaks for emerging livestock like quail. Disease prevention, control and sanitary management practices are the best guarantee against disease and pests and this can be achieved by keeping their house dry and clean; ensuring proper movement
of light and air inside their house; keeping different aged quails separated from each other;
separating the disease affected quails from the healthy one; burning the dead bird or burning them; not allowing other birds, animals or unknown persons enter inside quail house; ensuring hygienic and balanced feed supply and providing adequate fresh and clean water according to
Their demand. To avoid spread of diseases care for the youngest birds should be before the oldest
birds and care for healthy birds should be before the sick birds.
Seemingly, a little research specific to quail disease problems has been done and so treatment of specific diseases have been experimental. Thank you for reading. Wish the best practice. Feel free to leave your comment below.
