Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Price of feed going up!
Has anyone noticed the increase in the price of quail food. My Purina Startena just went up from $14.75 to $16.00. I checked with my local co-op (I don't get the Purina there) and they acknowledged that corn is going up and price increases were coming from them also. Food has gone way up and the price for the quail and eggs has remained steady. That won't work if we're going to make a profit. I'm going to have to adjust my egg and chick prices accordingly. Let me know how prices are in your area. I'm in Blue Ridge Georgia.
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Quail for Fun or Profit - You Gotta Decide
Why did you decide to raise quail? Granted the little birds are cute and appear to be docile and easy to take care of, but these are live pets that require constant care - 24/7 as the saying goes. What I mean is, raising quail is making a commitment, and quite a substantial commitment. So it is best to determine upfront if this is going to be a hobby or you are going to try and make money at it.
If you are just getting started, I have written a short E-Book that can help you get off to the right start with the Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail. It covers many topics such as equipment needed, proper feeding and housing, etc. It was written with the beginner in mind, so if that is what you are, I highly recommend the book. It only costs $10.00 and you'll make that back 10 times over in time and money saved by making the right choices the first time instead of having to reinvent the wheel at every turn.
If you are just looking to raise a few birds to give you something to do, I suggest you start off with a trio - 2 females and a male. Buy 3-4 week old birds so they are feathered enough to start out without a lot of extra heat. You'll need a cage about 18"x 24" with an access door to get at the birds and also to collect the eggs that they will start laying at about 6 weeks of age. Most feed stores will carry a small round mason jar feeder top and mason jar waterer top that will work just fine for three birds. If you want eggs year round, keep their lights on a timer so that they receive 14 hours of light every day. Once you set the timer, don't keep messing with it. Birds are light-sensitive and once they get on a schedule they will want to stay on it. Feed your birds a non-medicated quail starter (28-32% protein) until they are about 6 weeks of age. At that time, switch them (males and females) to a quail breeder (21-22% protein). Feed your quail the proper feed if you want healthy birds. Don't substitute chicken feed for quail feed as the protein content is not right.
If you are thinking about trying to make some money raising the birds for egg production or for chick sales or perhaps even for meat production, you have a lot of questions to answer, and I'll cover those in my next article: Raising the Jumbo Brown Coturnix for profit. See you then!
Selling Live Birds
Selling Live Birds
This is a great opportunity to make some extra money with your quail business but you need to do your research before you get started. Many people would rather receive live birds than eggs because the unknown factor of how many birds are you going to end up with, is removed.Most states will require that you only ship day old chicks, and this is good for you also. The baby chick absorbs its yolk sack before it hatches and this will provide sufficient nutrients to keep the birds alive for their 1-2 day journey. Bottom line: check with your local Post Office to make sure they will handle live bird shipments and find out what their recommendations are to ensure that you have the most successful shipment experience possible.
First, determine what area you will ship to. I'd recommend starting out with your own state until you get the hang of it. The Post Office will be able to ship anywhere in your own state overnight, usually. This is the ideal shipping arrangement. You drop the chicks off at the Post Office as late as you can and they deliver the next day.
Next, determine your shipping costs. Your shipping costs will include the actual postage, the cost of the proper live chick shipping box and it's pads, and any monies you are going to charge for your labor to put it together and take it to the Post Office.
Another consideration is heat or cold. Both, in the extreme, are dangerous, if not fatal to your chicks. If you are shipping overnight, they can usually handle either pretty well, but if they spend more than 24 hours in the shipping box under extreme weather conditions, you will suffer losses. This leaves a bad taste in your customer's mouth and costs you money as you will have to refund the costs of the dead chicks. Try not to ship when the temperature is over 85 or below 40. I have shipped above 90 and below 40 successfully, but the chicks were never in the box more than 24 hours.
Once you have located a source for your shipping boxes and pads, the next thing to do is work out a hatching schedule so you can meet your delivery dates. When setting the eggs, ensure you set enough extras to make sure you get more than you need to ship. You don't want to have to call the customer and tell him you didn't hatch enough birds. It makes you look like you don't know what you're doing and that will hurt your referral business.
If the birds will traveling more than 24 hours, I recommend a product called GroGel-B. It's a gel substance that will keep them dehydrating while they are traveling. It won't be necessary in cooler weather and short trips, but in the heat of the summer, it wouldn't hurt to put it in the box.
These are just a few pointers to help you get started in the live bird shipping business. Good luck!
Raising the Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail for Profit
Raising the Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail for Profit
In my last article I covered a little information about what to expect if you are getting started with the Jumbo Brown Coturnix Quail as a hobby. I'd like to take you a little deeper today and talk about the commitment necessary if you intend to make a profit with these birds.Obviously the main difference between raising quail as a hobby and raising them for profit is "scale" or difference in scope and size. You can mess around with quail with a Styrofoam incubator and some Tupperware tubs for cages, but you won't be able to operate efficiently with that equipment if you intend to make money at it. Let's look at some of the things you need to consider before you begin raising jumbo brown coturnix quail commercially.
1. What is your market?
This is overlooked by most people because they just jump right in (me too!). You start off raising a few birds for fun and the next thing you know people are buying your eggs and wanting you to hatch some chicks and you just can't keep up. SO, you figure, there must be a good market for these birds since you can't seem to raise enough of them and you take the next steps to get bigger. Unfortunately, getting bigger immediately outproduces the needs that your friends had when they were buying a few birds from you at a time. All of a sudden you'll have hundreds, if not thousands, of birds and eggs and nowhere to ship them to! This will put you out of business as fast as you got in it.
What is a legitimate market for quail? Let's just look at the bird and what it produces and not consider equipment sales, as that requires a much larger investment at the beginning.
Hatching Eggs: This will be the easiest thing to sell and the one that has the least restrictions surrounding it. Your main concern here is being able to produce what you sell and then ship it so that it arrives with as little damage as possible. This will take some time and experimentation, but you'll eventually figure out a system that works best for you. Outlets for egg sales, include: friends, local feed stores, newspaper advertising, farm bureau newspapers, and EBay, to name a few. Be careful how you price them because it is easy to price yourself out of the egg market. Do some research first. Find out what the big websites are getting for their eggs and then see what price they are selling for on EBay. You'll want to be somewhere in between the two (closer to the EBay price) until you develop a reputation for selling a quality product.
Before you advertise your first eggs, hatch a batch or two of your own to get an idea of what kind of hatching percentage you can look forward to. Nothing would be more embarrassing than sending out your first order of eggs and find out that only a few hatched or maybe none! You can blame whoever you want, but that customer won't be back to give you another try.
In my next article I'll cover another marketing opportunity: Live Birds.