Quail farms usually start for the eggs, but meat often turns out more profitable: restaurants and families looking for lean poultry buy the carcasses. Meat needs its own breeds — Japanese quail are too small.
Breeds
| Breed | Live weight at slaughter | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Texas A&M (Texas White) | 300–400 g | Meat, white carcass with no dark pin feathers |
| Pharaoh | 250–300 g | Meat, wild-type color |
| Manchurian Golden | 180–220 g | Dual-purpose |
| Japanese | 120–150 g | Eggs; not worth it for meat |
Figures are approximate and depend a lot on the line and the feed.
When to slaughter
Meat quail are slaughtered at 6–7 weeks (42–50 days). By then growth slows, and females start laying and putting feed into eggs. Carcass yield is about 70% of live weight.
In meat breeds, females are larger than males. If you want to keep some females for eggs, separate by sex at 3–4 weeks: in colored breeds males have a plain rusty breast without speckles; in white birds you sex by the vent.
Feeding
- first 3 weeks — starter with 24–28% protein;
- from week 4 — broiler feed or a dedicated meat-quail feed with 20–22% protein;
- a meat quail eats about 0.8–1 kg of feed through to slaughter.
More on composition and mistakes in what to feed quail.
Housing
Meat quail are kept in cages or on the floor. Cages make records and hygiene easier; the floor needs less investment at the start. Keep light dim during finishing: in bright light quail get nervous and peck each other. House temperature 20–24 °C.
How to work out the profit
The cost of a carcass is the price of the chick (or the hatching egg), feed, electricity and processing. An example: chick 0.20, 1 kg of feed at 0.50 = 0.50, other costs 0.15 — a 250 g carcass costs 0.85, and a kilogram of meat 3.40. Compare that with what your buyer will pay. A full calculation for a farm from scratch is in starting a quail farm.
Batches and cost
In EggPulse each quail hatch is a separate flock with its own age, feed, mortality and costs. The cost per carcass comes from your real numbers, not from the example in an article.
