Need advice for new meat source

dewdrop · Feb 26, 2024

Hello!
I am looking for some livestock advice. I currently have rabbits and chickens as my two livestock animals for meat, but I am looking to add another to the mix. We have goats but they are not sexually mature yet, and will only produce offspring about twice a year. My family eats a lot of meat and I'm hoping to substitute most of the meat we buy at the store with a consistent source of homegrown meat. We have two acres of land, so we don't have enough space for larger animals like cows. I think poultry is probably the best bet, but maybe I'm wrong. Ive considered ducks, although I am leaning toward quail. What do y'all think? P.S. my family is extremely emotionally attached to our two mini potbelly pigs, so I don't think I could convince them to dispatch any pig in the near future. Thanks!

eco2pia · Feb 26, 2024

I will say this...Quail and chicken and rabbit are very similar in flavor. A muscovy duck (who acts more like a goose in that they are grazers) is red meat. A muscovy breast fillet, seared and seasoned, is steak. That right there would decide me if I were you.

Lil Acorn Acres Farm · Feb 26, 2024

A pot belly pig is not the same as a meat pig, because there is so much fat. A nice meat pig is different. Think BACON.
Sheep are pretty easy. And Goats too.
We have dairy goats so that's a huge bonus.
I actually trade some of my rabbits for salmon.

eco2pia · Feb 26, 2024

Lil Acorn Acres Farm said:
I actually trade some of my rabbits for salmon.

oooh I miss the days when I could do that!

tambayo · Feb 26, 2024

Quaill are more work (need incubator to brood/hatch and such) then chickens (who can do that for you themselves) and small bones are fiddely.
Keeping meat on the hoof helps for year round supply, and male goat and lamb can be castrated via Burdizzo ( https://thriftyhomesteader.com/castrating-goats-and-sheep-with-a-burdizzo/ ) to keep hormones from pestering mom, sisters and so on. If you can keep them space wise, the only twice yearly breeding is no problem, just harvest when you need one, the breeding stock will provide enough individuals for them to feel safe numbers wise. Since you already have goats you are planning to breed, might as well eat what you can't keep.

Rabbits By DK · Feb 26, 2024

dewdrop said:
Hello!
I am looking for some livestock advice. I currently have rabbits and chickens as my two livestock animals for meat, but I am looking to add another to the mix. We have goats but they are not sexually mature yet, and will only produce offspring about twice a year. My family eats a lot of meat and I'm hoping to substitute most of the meat we buy at the store with a consistent source of homegrown meat. We have two acres of land, so we don't have enough space for larger animals like cows. I think poultry is probably the best bet, but maybe I'm wrong. Ive considered ducks, although I am leaning toward quail. What do y'all think? P.S. my family is extremely emotionally attached to our two mini potbelly pigs, so I don't think I could convince them to dispatch any pig in the near future. Thanks!

We raise ducks on the side, and love them. They are beautiful, friendly (but skittish), and taste wonderful. Highly recommend them. Only hard part is making sure they have a large water source (We use a IBC tote that's cut into a mini pond shape), otherwise they're about the same amount of effort as chickens for daily chores.

eco2pia · Feb 26, 2024

Rabbits By DK said:
We raise ducks on the side, and love them. They are beautiful, friendly (but skittish), and taste wonderful. Highly recommend them. Only hard part is making sure they have a large water source (We use a IBC tote that's cut into a mini pond shape), otherwise they're about the same amount of effort as chickens for daily chores.

Do you raise mallards or muscovy? I used to think muscovy were "ugly" but man are they tasty, and they do not need a ton of water (depending on the number you keep), they use it like a bird bath more than actually swimming. The mallard based ducks (all other domestic duck types are mallard types for the non-duck nerds reading this) do need a good sized amount of water.

Their warty little faces kinda grow on you eventually, lol. I have considered eventually replacing the drake with a Pekin and making moulards (which are sterile like mules), which I hear are even more tasty, but I have yet to try one.

Phrick · Feb 27, 2024

I keep Coturnix quail and rabbits. I do not find quail and rabbit to be similar in any way as far as taste - for starters, quail is a 100% dark meat animal. I only have .83 acre so large livestock are out of the question but at some point I'd like to add a dairy animal, been leaning toward goat for that. Also been thinking about muscovy ducks, but I continually run into our weather as a stumbling block - I'm in Arizona's Sonoran Desert.

I guess in your consideration of what animal to add, you of course need to know your space, cost to feed the animals you're looking at, the "usual" stuff. But you could also ask yourself/your family: do we want more lean meat? A red meat source? Are we looking to expand our nutritional coverage? eg you'll get different amounts of iron or B12 or saturated fat from different animals, so what does the animals you already have cover and do you want to expand. These are some of the things that I have in mind when deciding what to add to my homestead. (for nutritional comparison I like this site https://foodstruct.com/compare - it's not super duper complete but it's a GREAT starter)

Rabbits By DK · Feb 27, 2024

eco2pia said:
Do you raise mallards or muscovy? I used to think muscovy were "ugly" but man are they tasty, and they do not need a ton of water (depending on the number you keep), they use it like a bird bath more than actually swimming. The mallard based ducks (all other domestic duck types are mallard types for the non-duck nerds reading this) do need a good sized amount of water.

Their warty little faces kinda grow on you eventually, lol. I have considered eventually replacing the drake with a Pekin and making moulards (which are sterile like mules), which I hear are even more tasty, but I have yet to try one.

We raise silver appleyard ducks.

Alaska Satin · Feb 27, 2024

dewdrop said:
Hello!
I am looking for some livestock advice. I currently have rabbits and chickens as my two livestock animals for meat, but I am looking to add another to the mix. We have goats but they are not sexually mature yet, and will only produce offspring about twice a year. My family eats a lot of meat and I'm hoping to substitute most of the meat we buy at the store with a consistent source of homegrown meat. We have two acres of land, so we don't have enough space for larger animals like cows. I think poultry is probably the best bet, but maybe I'm wrong. Ive considered ducks, although I am leaning toward quail. What do y'all think? P.S. my family is extremely emotionally attached to our two mini potbelly pigs, so I don't think I could convince them to dispatch any pig in the near future. Thanks!

We've raised quail for years and they are a fabulous source of eggs, but with a family of eight, quail weren't the ideal meat source. The kids called them "single-serve chicken," but the "single" part went out the window when the boys hit their teen years! It would have a taken a pretty huge flock to feed us, even with the rabbits. But we live mostly on wild game, and I absolutely refuse to buy store chicken, so the quail were a by-product of our egg-raising, and a nice occasional break from red meat.

If you want them specifically for meat, be sure you get Jumbo Browns. Generally, adult coturnix are around 9oz, but my daughter's Jumbo Brown meat pen birds were 1.2lbs at 8 weeks! (I don't call them "Coturnix quail" because the word coturnix is Latin for quail.

) We've also raised Standard Pharoah, Texas A&M, and tuxedo coturnix. The Jumbo Browns don't look so much bigger, but when you pick them up, they are just a solid little football. Their eggs are a bit larger, too; they won't fit in the standard quail egg cartons.

As far as maintenance, they are about the same as chickens. I found that the baby quail grew better on Gamebird Starter crumbles (had to sieve out the fines for them at first since the crumbles were too big!), but I fed the adult quail 20% layer crumbles and they did just fine (my chickens get 16% pellets).

We keep the quail in a tractor on a grassy part of our yard during the spring/fall/summer. They were very healthy that way, but it did require moving them, while the chickens stay put in their yard. I would never suggest keeping them in wire battery cages. We did for a while, but they tear their feet up on the wire (they scratch like chickens, even when they're eating out of a feeder) and have a hard time keeping their feathers in order, even with a sand box in the cage. They also only lived about 2 years in the wire cages, but our birds kept on solid floors/grass live for 4+ years, and lay an egg every day till they die (with proper lighting of course).

We did overwinter quail in a greenhouse one year, but that was a pain, so we tried overwintering them in the garage, which was a dusty mess. I finally just got rid of most of the quail in the fall and kept two hens in a plastic-bottomed rabbit cage in our house, which wasn't bad (the roosters are a bit loud for the house). We ate eggs all winter and I just get a new roo and a couple more hens in the spring when we could keep them outside again, and hatched the year's quail from those. We've had very good hatch success from the tractored birds, between 80-100%.

Phrick · Feb 27, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
We've raised quail for years and they are a fabulous source of eggs, but with a family of eight, quail weren't the ideal meat source. The kids called them "single-serve chicken," but the "single" part went out the window when the boys hit their teen years! It would have a taken a pretty huge flock to feed us, even with the rabbits. But we live mostly on wild game, and I absolutely refuse to buy store chicken, so the quail were a by-product of our egg-raising, and a nice occasional break from red meat.

If you want them specifically for meat, be sure you get Jumbo Browns. Generally, adult coturnix are around 9oz, but my daughter's Jumbo Brown meat pen birds were 1.2lbs at 8 weeks! (I don't call them "Coturnix quail" because the word coturnix is Latin for quail. ) We've also raised Standard Pharoah, Texas A&M, and tuxedo coturnix. The Jumbo Browns don't look so much bigger, but when you pick them up, they are just a solid little football. Their eggs are a bit larger, too; they won't fit in the standard quail egg cartons.

As far as maintenance, they are about the same as chickens. I found that the baby quail grew better on Gamebird Starter crumbles (had to sieve out the fines for them at first since the crumbles were too big!), but I fed the adult quail 20% layer crumbles and they did just fine (my chickens get 16% pellets).

We keep the quail in a tractor on a grassy part of our yard during the spring/fall/summer. They were very healthy that way, but it did require moving them, while the chickens stay put in their yard. I would never suggest keeping them in wire battery cages. We did for a while, but they tear their feet up on the wire (they scratch like chickens, even when they're eating out of a feeder) and have a hard time keeping their feathers in order, even with a sand box in the cage. They also only lived about 2 years in the wire cages, but our birds kept on solid floors/grass live for 4+ years, and lay an egg every day till they die (with proper lighting of course).

We did overwinter quail in a greenhouse one year, but that was a pain, so we tried overwintering them in the garage, which was a dusty mess. I finally just got rid of most of the quail in the fall and kept two hens in a plastic-bottomed rabbit cage in our house, which wasn't bad (the roosters are a bit loud for the house). We ate eggs all winter and I just get a new roo and a couple more hens in the spring when we could keep them outside again, and hatched the year's quail from those. We've had very good hatch success from the tractored birds, between 80-100%.

interesting about the feed, my quail get 20% pellets and eat them just fine. And I started the chicks on crumble and they all grew great, never a problem with it. I must've lucked out! I have 15 eggs incubating now, should hatch on/around 3/10, we'll see if I wind up having to sift fines or grind up the crumble for them. My current batch I bought as day-olds from a friend, I've not had freshly hatched chicks before (but the day-olds started on crumble and did fine)

my bad about the name LOL I got used to saying it rather than have to explain to family/friends when they ask, it's easier to say "coturnix quail" since they look different than Californias or Bobwhites. It really throws some people that they don't have the fancy head feather!

We're a family of 4 but only 2 of us are brave enough to eat quail so so far it's worked out for feeding us but I can definitely see teenagers mowing through a flock pretty quick, my now-adult sons just about destroyed us with grocery budget there for a few years.

Alaska Satin · Feb 28, 2024

Phrick said:
interesting about the feed, my quail get 20% pellets and eat them just fine.

We use the crumbles because the quail get 20%, the chickens get 16%, and it's easier for my teenage helpers to tell which birds get which feed.

When we run out of 20% crumble (teens didn't notice they were shaking the last bit out of the bag...

), the quail eat the chickens' 16% pellets just fine until we refill our feed stock.

Phrick said:
And I started the chicks on crumble and they all grew great, never a problem with it. I must've lucked out!

On gamebird grower the chicks grew to 1.2 lbs by 8 weeks. ! When we fed regular chick starter they seemed healthy, but we never got that kind of growth!

Phrick said:
we'll see if I wind up having to sift fines or grind up the crumble for them. My current batch I bought as day-olds from a friend, I've not had freshly hatched chicks before (but the day-olds started on crumble and did fine)

Again, feeding fines is a practicality/frugality thing. On days when someone else does the feeding, the chicks get gamebird grower without sifting. Then the tiny chicks throw/scratch the bigger pieces out and eat the fines, so the bigger crumbles are wasted. Bigger chicks ignore the fines and eat the crumbles, so the fines are wasted. So now I sift the feed and feed the fines to little guys, crumbles to bigger guys, and there's a heck of a lot less waste. There's also less smell, because all the less-preferred feed that gets tossed into the shavings very quickly becomes awful-smelling, moldy silage in a humid brooder.

ladysown · Feb 28, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
We use the crumbles because the quail get 20%, the chickens get 16%, and it's easier for my teenage helpers to tell which birds get which feed. When we run out of 20% crumble (teens didn't notice they were shaking the last bit out of the bag... ), the quail eat the chickens' 16% pellets just fine until we refill our feed stock.

On gamebird grower the chicks grew to 1.2 lbs by 8 weeks. ! When we fed regular chick starter they seemed healthy, but we never got that kind of growth!

Again, feeding fines is a practicality/frugality thing. On days when someone else does the feeding, the chicks get gamebird grower without sifting. Then the tiny chicks throw/scratch the bigger pieces out and eat the fines, so the bigger crumbles are wasted. Bigger chicks ignore the fines and eat the crumbles, so the fines are wasted. So now I sift the feed and feed the fines to little guys, crumbles to bigger guys, and there's a heck of a lot less waste. There's also less smell, because all the less-preferred feed that gets tossed into the shavings very quickly becomes awful-smelling, moldy silage in a humid brooder.

this is great to know. I sift rabbit fines for my mealworms, should I get into quail, sifting it will be easy enough to do as well.

Phrick · Feb 28, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
We use the crumbles because the quail get 20%, the chickens get 16%, and it's easier for my teenage helpers to tell which birds get which feed. When we run out of 20% crumble (teens didn't notice they were shaking the last bit out of the bag... ), the quail eat the chickens' 16% pellets just fine until we refill our feed stock.

I'm so glad this forum exists, I learn here every day. I will have to pay attention to what gets eaten vs wasted if I manage to actually hatch any of the eggs and figure it out from there. It'll be my first go with brand new babies (my first covey I got as adults from a friend, and the current layers were all in the range of 1 day to 2 weeks when i got them). If I could get any of my family to be helpers I'd be THRILLED but they all shy away. Smell aversion nonsense. Weenies! I also don't have chickens so I only have to wrangle one type of (bird) feed unless/until I manage to hatch some chicks! So in the end it will have to be some balance between frugality, convenience, and being able to manage it on my own. Maybe sifting feed is something I could actually get one of my menfolk to do, they can sift out the fines outside the shed/animal space after all.

dlynn · Feb 29, 2024

When I

ladysown said:
this is great to know. I sift rabbit fines for my mealworms, should I get into quail, sifting it will be easy enough to do as well.

When I Get the powdery stuff build up in rabbit feeder, I scoop it out and dump as a pile in the quail aviary. They think it a treat and flock to it. Pile disappears fairly quickly. Don't even mind the few rabbit balls in it.

Cindy in SD · Feb 29, 2024

Alaska Satin said:
We've raised quail for years and they are a fabulous source of eggs, but with a family of eight, quail weren't the ideal meat source. The kids called them "single-serve chicken," but the "single" part went out the window when the boys hit their teen years! It would have a taken a pretty huge flock to feed us, even with the rabbits. But we live mostly on wild game, and I absolutely refuse to buy store chicken, so the quail were a by-product of our egg-raising, and a nice occasional break from red meat.

If you want them specifically for meat, be sure you get Jumbo Browns. Generally, adult coturnix are around 9oz, but my daughter's Jumbo Brown meat pen birds were 1.2lbs at 8 weeks! (I don't call them "Coturnix quail" because the word coturnix is Latin for quail. ) We've also raised Standard Pharoah, Texas A&M, and tuxedo coturnix. The Jumbo Browns don't look so much bigger, but when you pick them up, they are just a solid little football. Their eggs are a bit larger, too; they won't fit in the standard quail egg cartons.

As far as maintenance, they are about the same as chickens. I found that the baby quail grew better on Gamebird Starter crumbles (had to sieve out the fines for them at first since the crumbles were too big!), but I fed the adult quail 20% layer crumbles and they did just fine (my chickens get 16% pellets).

We keep the quail in a tractor on a grassy part of our yard during the spring/fall/summer. They were very healthy that way, but it did require moving them, while the chickens stay put in their yard. I would never suggest keeping them in wire battery cages. We did for a while, but they tear their feet up on the wire (they scratch like chickens, even when they're eating out of a feeder) and have a hard time keeping their feathers in order, even with a sand box in the cage. They also only lived about 2 years in the wire cages, but our birds kept on solid floors/grass live for 4+ years, and lay an egg every day till they die (with proper lighting of course).

We did overwinter quail in a greenhouse one year, but that was a pain, so we tried overwintering them in the garage, which was a dusty mess. I finally just got rid of most of the quail in the fall and kept two hens in a plastic-bottomed rabbit cage in our house, which wasn't bad (the roosters are a bit loud for the house). We ate eggs all winter and I just get a new roo and a couple more hens in the spring when we could keep them outside again, and hatched the year's quail from those. We've had very good hatch success from the tractored birds, between 80-100%.

It gets really cold here in the winter (usually not for super long, but still) This past (hopefully) winter it was in the -30s (Fahrenheit) at night. For a couple of weeks. Worst I’ve seen in living here for 30+ years. (Holy Chemtrails, Batman?)

What would you think about a Cot setup in the (uninsulated, but well-ventilated) barn? Is that just too much for them? I suppose I could pare them down to a breeding group over winter and bring them into the garage on really bad nights…

TKT · Feb 29, 2024

They can manage down to -20. I have an aviary of about 50, culled down from 100 so I could make room for rabbits. Lowest I've had them is 17° in the aviary with the sides tarped and protected. They have upside down high-sided plastic rabbit litter boxes for hides that they can go into and huddle. If you have them in a barn out of wind and drafts, with hides probably bedded with thick shavings, they might be able to huddle up enough to share body warmth to make it.

TKT · Feb 29, 2024

Just a general note that game bird feed that is about 30% protein for starter is what quail chicks need up until 8 weeks. Then you can adjust them down to 22%, but the hens really do need the game bird layer. We grind the crumble a little bit for the chicks for the first couple weeks. The adults refused to eat any fines. It's been bad because the feed is really full of powder now! I'm thinking the opposite and wondering if I should sift the quail feed and mix it with the rabbit feed fines and bake it into biscuits for the rabbits..

I just switched the birds to a pellet and they can eat that or starve because I'm sick of them wasting so much food. I also supplement with mealworms for the protein and calcium content, and I give them a grain mix, Kruse Dove and Quail, that is affordable and which they love, and is closer to what they would eat in the wild. That helps the Californias that I have in there with them.

I'm afraid to add up the feed expense now that I'm also up to nine adult rabbits and 30 kits. The growout kits are 7 weeks. I have seven New Zealands and seven American Blues. I want to keep the best doe from each group. A friend wants two New Zealand bucks. So that leaves me 10 to process. The blues are doing great, they are 3.4 to 3.6 lb. The New Zealands are running 3 to 3.2. I have two more litters of 8 each coming up on a week old. I plan to breed two more of my does in about 2 weeks. Then I will be done until closer to the end of October because of the heat.

I'm hoping to cut my pellet use in half since I use Modesto Milling organic, which is ridiculously expensive from Chewy! I'd like to work them up to 50% whole grains with legumes, either lentils or peas for added protein. Plus greens from the garden but minimal on those. They also get unlimited timothy, which is horrendously expensive here as well. About $45 for maybe a 60 lb bale.

Cindy in SD · Feb 29, 2024

I found this thread on Backyard Chickens (which really should just be “Backyard Poultry”) Maybe it will be helpful. It’s about mealworms and soldier fly larvae. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mealworms-eat-quail-poop.1159698/

TKT · Feb 29, 2024

Cindy in SD said:
I found this thread on Backyard Chickens (which really should just be “Backyard Poultry”) Maybe it will be helpful. It’s about mealworms and soldier fly larvae. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mealworms-eat-quail-poop.1159698/

I've considered that for the last year and a half, but I'm already pretty well covered up with two big gardens, 50 quail, 39 rabbits now and two fussy Poodles. It is something that I would like to try this summer, because the birds follow us around until they get their worms. One of them will stand on our foot and peck at our pants the entire time we are working in the aviary until they get their worms at the end!

Need advice for new meat source

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