How do you feel about Pharaoh (Coturnix?) Quail? Have you tried others? Are they like the "general" Coturnix where they mature at like, what? 8 weeks or so? And hatch in 17?
I keep trying to tell people to get around their city's "no chicken" laws by getting quail. ;) Hahaha.
We have raised both the Coturnix and the Jumbo Coturnix, and I highly recommend them. They mature at 8 weeks and hatch in 17, the same as many other quail. We looked into them originally as there is a chicken ordinance in our city. I don't have any experience with chickens, but my husband says that the quail don't smell as bad as chickens, and they mature in about 1/2 the time. They take up less space, and you don't have to pluck them if you raise them for meat. We did try to hatch out some snowflake quail once, but there was a problem with our incubator and only one egg hatched out of like 20, and it didn't survive. So that was really tragic, and I haven't tried hatching any out since then.
I have chickens, ducks, and geese. :D And three Bobwhite quail. I am definitely interested in the quicker maturing and hatchrate of the Coturnix. (Bobwhites are about a 23 week mature rate and 23 days hatching).
Definitely look into them. I got my original hatching eggs off of ebay and shipped to me, and we had a great hatch rate. The second set of eggs we got didn't hatch because of the incubator issues. So the third group of quail, we bought as chicks and picked them up. There are a lot of good resources online, but this is probably the most comprehensive guide. http://www.stellargamebirds.net/books
Wow thanks for the helpful link!
I was surprised with my bobwhites of their HUMAN FREAKING WHISTLE! Scared the bejezus out of me AND my dog! We thought there was an intruder on our property! Hahaha.