Quail Anyone?

Of all the many different kinds of animals we have raised/taken in here at our farm we have never had any experience with quail. A friend of ours started the hobby of raising quail. He became too busy to care for them so we took over and here we are with a quail pen in our yard!
The pen was set up to encourage the hens to lay. They were doing a great job too. Now that the days are shorter they have stopped laying altogether. When they were laying we would gather the eggs daily and put them in the incubator.

As they hatched we put them in this smaller pen that was kept in my LAUNDRY ROOM! We learned an important lesson in a terrible way. We put the younger quail in with the adult quail too early. They looked almost the same size so we thought they would be safe. We kept a check on them for a couple of hours and all was fine. However, the next morning when we went in to feed them the older quail had pecked the younger ones in the head and they ended up dying. We knew to watch for this because chickens will do the same thing to the young chicks unless a mother is there to protect her little ones. We felt just awful about our mistake.

Now you may be wondering what we are going to do with all these quail. Trust me, I wondered the same thing ;-) However, my guys had a plan all along. They are raising the quail to release them in the field behind our house. Then they want to go quail hunting. We will, of course, be eating the quail. Our boys have been taught by their father to treat all animals humanely and with respect. Also, they know that when they go hunting to kill an animal it is to provide food for the family.

I remember a time when Brandon killed a squirrel without asking his Dad. Guess what Brandon ate? Yep. He had squirrel for supper. He didn't mind though. He thought it was pretty cool because he cleaned it and cooked it over an open fire outside.

Have you ever eaten quail?