All Hail to the Quail

I have three female quail in my backyard.  They are new pets that I picked up at the pet store about three weeks ago and last weekend they were moved into their summer home; a little hutch tucked away underneath my summer kitchen.  They have lots of room and chickweed to munch on and I think that they must be quite happy.   Their names are Vizzini, Fezzik and Inigo Montoya.  From The Princess Bride.  And since we’ve named them I am pretty sure that we won’t be butchering them.

The quail hutch in my back yard.

No, the purpose of these little quail is for them to be egg layers.  That’s right, quail lay eggs and they are supposed to be something of a delicacy.  The eggs are said to be somewhat larger than a quarter and they are supposed to have a taste that is similar to chicken eggs.  Although chickens and quail both lay eggs there are quite a few things about chickens and quail that are different.

Quail can start laying as early as six weeks old.  Chickens on the other hand start to lay somewhere between 18 and 32 weeks.  Quail are similar to chickens in that they lay about an egg a day once they have started laying.  They live for about two years and they lay their entire lives.  Chickens have a couple of productive years and then they can continue to live for quite a while without laying very often or without laying at all.  Chickens though, are really good at handling the cold.  I know a number of people in Winnipeg who have raised chickens outside through the winter with only the help of an insulated hutch and a light bulb in a cookie tin as a water heater to keep their water from freezing.  My quail are outside right now, but I think that we will have to bring them in for the winter.   I don’t think that they will last on their own.  Quail are smaller than chickens though, so I should be able to find room for them inside.

The inside of the quail hutch.

The main reason though for me choosing quail over chickens is that in Winnipeg quail are legal and chickens are illegal.  I support those in Winnipeg who have chickens and who are trying to make it legal to raise hens in the city, but for now I wanted to stick with something that was legal.  The funny thing is that although quail and hens are different from one another in many ways, they are similar in most ways that would have bearing on whether or not they could be raised in the city.  They are birds, they lay eggs and they are relatively similar in size.  The only legal difference between them is that quail, for some reason are considered pets, so you can buy them are a pet store and it is legal to raise them.  Chickens on the other hand are considered an exotic animal for the purposes of Winnipeg city bylaws.  So while my soon to be egg laying pets are fair game, literally and figuratively, chickens are not.

So, wish me luck in my endeavours.  I’ll let you know how the eggs taste once my quail start to lay and hopefully sooner rather than later egg laying birds of all kinds will be legal to raise in the city.

Anna Weier is an urban homesteader and a Research Associate at the University of Manitoba.