Hiii
Quail farming is more remunerative than poultry farming.
* Requires minimum floor space
* Needs low investment
* Quails are comparatively sturdy birds
* Can be marketed at an early age ie. five weeks
* Early sexual maturity - starts laying eggs in about six to seven weeks of age
* High rate of egg laying -280 eggs per year
* Quail meat is tastier than chicken and has less fat content. It promotes body and brain development in children.
* Nutritionally, the quail eggs are on par with that of chicken eggs. Moreover, they contain less cholesterol.
* Quail meat and eggs are a nutritious diet for pregnant and nursing mothers.
Management of quail farm
* At the age of six weeks, female quails usually weigh 175-200 g and the males weigh about 125-150 g
* Female quails start laying eggs at 7 weeks of age and continue utpo 22 weeks of age
* Usually egg laying happens during the evening time of the day
* The quail egg usually weighs about 9-10 g
* The breast of the male quail is usually narrow and covered with equally distributed brown and white feathers. But the female quail has a broad breast covered with brown feathers with black dots.
* The female and male quails should be separated at the age of four weeks
* Sixteen hours of light per day should be available to the egg laying quails
The day old quail chicks usually weigh 8-10 g. Hence, the quail chicks need more temperature. Absence of adequate temperature and exposure to high speed cool wind leads to clustering of young ones, which results in high mortality.
Challenges in quail rearing
* Male quails usually make a different sound which is usually disturbing to the human
* When rearing the male and female quails together, the male quails peck the other quails and make them blind. At times, death of the quails are also noticed.
The different varieties are - Cri uttam, cari ujwal, cari sweta, cari pearl.
For further details you can contact the Quail Avian research institute.
Regards
Ashwini
