The Prepper Broadcasting Network - PBN Special: Dave Jones IC Quail Q&A

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Commanders Quail Cage https://amzn.to/4fz4UO8www.pbnfamily.comwww.disastercoffee.com

so i'm going to basically go through where i'm at in my thought process and then follow through kind of till till i'm ripping heads off and then we'll we'll call it from that point so basically i'll give you my plan maybe And you tell me what I'm missing Okay Starting with I kind of Well I'm torn okay

So I'm torn on do I want to buy I've been wanting to buy an incubator anyway Because I don't have one But at the same time With the election so close I also just want quail here. And I don't want to wait for eggs to hatch and chicks and manage all that and then something goes wrong. Yeah, that's six months before you get production up.

Oh, see, that's a stat I didn't know. But that makes sense. Like chickens, pretty similar. So when you buy mature, you got to wait time on that? Or are they popping eggs out right off the bat? They'll be mature to eat in six weeks. So they grow pretty big pretty quick. But they don't get very big.

I gotcha. Okay. Oh, you know. So it's survival of the fittest. Yeah, yeah. So how many do you guys gather and incubate, and how often? Gosh. Or is that a Maria thing?

It's not really a Maria thing, but it depends upon what you're what you're after if you're after eggs you know you you gotta get the good thing about quail we might as well get hit record because i've been recording oh okay so the good thing about quail is you can get a lot of them in a little space. Right. So when you're calculating quail eggs to normal eggs, it's three to five quail eggs make one normal egg. Yeah. Well, I'm always going to have eggs because of my current chickens. So the quail eggs are kind of a cherry on top. Quail eggs. The quail eggs are kind of a cherry on top. What I really want the quail for is if things, well, what I really want the quail for is an option of repeatable meat.

Yeah. But then you definitely need an incubator. You don't need a big one. You know, one that fits like 24 eggs. Okay. Will do quail really well and uh the thing that we didn't know about quail was how vicious they are they are positively uh little mean raptors. They peck each other. You got to look for that, too, because they peck each other in the head.

Oh, okay. You start to see it. You start to see them losing feathers and stuff. Yeah. So what do you guys do? Eat the mean ones first? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And you only need one rooster per, like, ten females. Wow. Yeah. So if you get a lot of roosters, just separate them from the rest of the flock, raise them up, and butcher them. Yeah, okay, because they'll just be wild. Yeah, yeah, they'll just be pounding each other. It was kind of shocking. You'll know the roosters because they're the only ones

that grow. And their crow is kind of like brrrr. It's really easy. Quail are quiet. Small, easy to keep. There's a little there's a plastic pen that's on Amazon, and it works great because...

I think I was looking at it today. Oh, okay. As they pop the eggs out, it'll go into a little trough in the front. Yep, I was looking at it today. Yep. Keep them fed fed now that that is one thing the feed you got to get them the high protein feed the game bird feed okay so it's like 22 uh they don't get enough protein with uh regular chicken feed. I got you. Here's my plan.

I'm going to get the high-protein feed anyway. Here's my plan. I know you've never been to my yard, but I have a dog kennel chain-link fence. I'd say it's about, I don't know, what is it? Maybe seven feet. It's probably like a seven foot box like around like the perimeter is probably seven foot lengths of fence and i got bird netting over the top of that and that's where my chicken coop is inside that fence

yeah that's that's awesome i have a similar setup up back to the house. It's the old clover setup, right? Well, not where clover is. Up back where the... Oh, where the greenhouse is. Yeah, up behind that. Because I needed something really, really, you know, like bear proof. Oh, for sure. And I could easily attach, you know, plywood for walls. Yeah. And all I did was run some 2x4s through the top and then screwed the metal roofing material right onto those two by fours oh that's a great idea yeah yeah so i have a pen that's you know and a door and everything and it's wonderful

so this is kind of my thought and i know you don't do them this way, but let me know what you would think. Around the, now that you know the setup, I'll keep the chickens in there. The chickens are in my yard most of the day. They come out of that coop, they do what the hell they want to do. That's why they wind up getting yanked all the time. But I like the eggs, you know what I mean? They forage and get up, it's good. but I like the eggs you know what I mean they forage and get out it's good my plan with the quail to upgrade their sort of living situation a little bit or downgraded depending on how often

they get killed too was uh I was gonna shut that gate up I was gonna you know maybe about midday by midday all my chickens have laid I was gonna shut the gate before the quail arrive i'm going to add fine chicken wire to the bottom half of the gate then around midday i'm going to shut that gate up and let the quail run inside of that gate because there's grass in there there's bugs in there all that kind of stuff is in there um do you think that would be a nightmare is that a bad plan well uh it depends they uh they uh they're a lot smaller than chickens and they they try and get out and run oh okay they run really fast and um they they kind of jump fly they don't really fly fly yeah but uh yeah they'll they'll escape on you so maybe i'd have to wrap the entire fence it's

about seven feet tall too maybe or six feet tall I'd probably have to wrap that entire fence with chicken wire. Yeah, I definitely would. Oh, and get you a fishing net. Oh, you could throw it on top of them? I got plenty of nets, but... Yeah, because if they ever get out, you know, they'll run along a place and you gotta

catch them with a fishing net. Yeah, that makes sense. You ain't catching them little things with your hand, I guess. No, you won't get close enough. You can catch a chicken that way. Yeah, I do. You will never catch a quail that way.

Okay, well that's good good all right so we bring them in we bring them in mature by by purchase still get the incubator for the next generation yep and uh what do you put their feed and water in? Well, they slop feed out quite a bit when they eat. That makes sense. What I do is I have a plastic bin, a small plastic bin, and I drilled like one-inch holes in this bin, okay? So they have to stick their head in the bin to get the food. Oh, yeah. And that way they don't throw it out.

That's the way I do my chickens. Same setup. Yeah. Yeah. Five-gallon bucket. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

That's a good one. I like that. Yeah, because if that feed feed that feed will be double almost what i pay for my chicken feed and i'll tell you they even though they eat the more expensive high protein food if you keep them from slopping it out it lasts a good long time yeah because they're little i guess they don't eat that much. Yeah. Makes sense.

Do you water them like with, what do you put water in? Well, we just use whatever. They don't drink a lot of water either. So if you're checking feed and checking water, you know, twice a day, you'll be fine. I got a screw top chick feet water, you know that kind? Yep, that's what we use. That probably would do it, okay. Yeah.

All right. Now there is like a caution. And now we've only ever had this problem one time of all the quail and we must have had oh geez probably 200 quail over several different groups okay yeah but they will jump fly if the cage is high enough they will try and jump fly and they could break their neck like in the cage yes in the cage like we put them in you know our rabbit cages yeah oh yeah they're kind of like three by three by three yep okay and that's where we put them and they were trying to jump fly and one of them broke their neck so

it's just a thing that you gotta be aware of that you can always cut their wings too because you trim one of their wings and they're never flying yeah that makes sense that makes sense Because, you know, you trim one of their wings and they're never flying.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, so we're feeding them, we're gathering eggs on the regular. You guys, I'm assuming, gather eggs in the morning just like chicken eggs? Yep. And you just set aside, you're assuming all eggs are fertilized, you set aside the ones that you want to incubate. Do you start incubating, like, if you know, all right, I'm going to take 24 out of this flock and freezer camp them,

when do you start incubating? You probably do it before you kill them, right? Yeah. And, you know, because it takes a while for them to get big enough that they can stay with the others. If you put them in too small, they'll just get pecked to death. Yikes. Yeah. So then I need another place for that i need a bin for uh the chicks

just like chickens yeah that i would have two separate but the good thing is they can be it can be small you know you can fit 12 12 of these chicks in one of those little cages like you were looking at. Yeah, the little plastic ones. Yeah. And the good thing about those plastic ones, you can mount them. Oh, cool. Yeah, you can mount them up. You don't have to keep them on the ground or put something like a couple hooks there,

ground or or put something like a hook a couple hooks there mount them up during the night and then pull them off and put them out in the grass during the day yeah i like that yeah they can eat eat grass eat bugs and then just put them back in the uh you know your dog kennel thing yeah i like that that's a good idea. Yeah. What do you, now you guys are going to do more than me, of course, but what do you guys normally butcher? How many? Oh, my gosh. You can do those.

See, I have a sharp pair of scissors and a small metal cone. So I just stuff them in the cone hold them in there with two two fingers okay and then and then scissor scissor the head off okay i got you and the dogs love the heads i bet they do yeah okay so you put head in cone upside down cut the head off and then you leave them in there to drain a little bit or no yeah but they don't have that much to even drain yeah that makes sense they're tiny chickens don't have much either so yeah we we started by trying to save the wings and all that nah nah just cut the wings off cut the wings off skin it maria skins them i know that i've seen them before yep because they're so small yeah they are so yeah and uh man they are tasty you put three or four of them in a pot man you make some good soup oh i bet i bet well that's an easy enough butchering process

geez oh and it goes quick i i can't remember uh we timed maria so from from head to actual you know in the ice uh it was like you could do like one every six minutes or something. I mean, it was crazy, crazy quick. So does she, I guess she removes the entrails and stuff just like a chicken? Yep. Okay. Yep, and it's so, so easy. Because it's small?

Yep. One snip and you scoop everything out with your fingers. I mean, it's quick. Okay. I like that. Oh, yeah. No scalding. That's a pain in the ass.

No removing all the feathers. That's a pain. No scalding. No plucking. And like I said, just snip the wings off. You got the breast and the leg. Okay. So then we got them dunking them in ice water or putting them on ice or something like that as you go.

If she adds something, because I'll call her after we're done here. Okay. I'll send you a text. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. It's super, super easy. What do you guys do? Do you Ziploc bag them?

Yep. Ziploc bag, one to a bag, to a bag what do you do well whatever whatever you're gonna either cook or throw in a pot for for one meal okay that makes sense yeah usually three to five uh depending on size we started with the giant uh the Japanese giant quail it's almost like jumbo shrimp it doesn't make any sense giant quail so these and we didn't know either

those were the most aggressive ones we did not know this and man they were getting just bloodied and beat up and it's like a cage match in there exactly well they they actually do have quail fights like cock fights oh i believe that yeah that makes sense so what do you guys do now? Bob White or something like that? Yeah, since then we've gotten the smaller ones. But, you know, they'll produce eggs like clockwork, one a day, every day for two years. Okay. And, you know, you put the light in there for winter time and they just keep popping them out

and what is the best time best age for harvesting for meat any time six weeks and on once they get to maturity they don't get much bigger. Okay, I got you. So when you start hearing them going, that's it.

Time to go. That's the dinner bell? Yep. Okay. Six weeks is nice, man. I say to Maria, he's saying, cut my neck, cut my neck. Yeah, there you go. Oh, boy. Well, that, man, that's a hell of a wrap-up right there.

Quails from start to finish with Dave Jones. Quails from egg to freezer. I recommend them. They're're easier they're quiet if you're in uh an urban setting and you you don't feel comfortable with your neighbors with chickens you could put these things in like a bin or a suitcase and just no one will know no one will know you're even raising birds. Yeah, they are the covert meat sorts for sure. Yeah. And the eggs are five times as nutritious as chicken eggs.

Wow. Well, it makes sense. The high-protein diet. Yep. And then you can pickle them. A jar of pickled quail eggs. Just awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's a real protein solution on the shelf right there.

Yep. All right, Dave. I appreciate it, man. This was a 20-minute bonus here. I think I'll probably give it out to our members first, let them look it over and then give it out to our members first. Let them look it over and then give it out to the greater good. Okay. Sounds good. Hey, good luck

with your new endeavor. Oh, yeah. Well, shoot. I got everything I need right here on the phone if I run into any problems, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, some people were saying, oh, they're very you know, some people were saying, oh, they're very, you know, they get sick or they're very finicky. And we found none of that.

Really? Wow. Yeah, they're super resilient. I mean, they live in the wild. Right. So they didn't, we never had one get sick. Maybe that's just the way we are. We only had that one break his neck because he tried to fly and that, you know. We've never had a problem with quail.

That's phenomenal. Well, I hope to have the same outcomes, man. I'm looking forward to it any issues with winter no i mean you know where we have the rapid cage yeah we would we would staple plastic on the outside of there like on the front there yeah and they they would be fine okay cool no heat no heater required no no red light man when they're babies yeah yeah yeah but when they're adults they're they're fine epic the epic survival bird yep the quail