# Making money selling quail eggs?



## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

I'm looking for thoughts on an side business I'm considering. I'd like opinions and advice.

I've got a nice 2400 sf metal building on the property with ten 12' x 12' stalls and heat in it. When I bought the property I thought I'd make some money renting to horse owners but after dealing with horse owners who don't care for their animals I gave up and now the barn just sits mostly empty. I work in another building on the property so I'm usually onsite but kind of getting to the age where dealing with heavy timbers is getting old and I've been trying to figure a way to make some income using that empty building.

Quail for eggs require less than 1 sf per bird and the cages can easily be stacked allowing for 270+ quail per 12' x 12' stall which realistically can produce over 165 eggs per stall/day. Feed, power, egg cartons with labels, cages , ect. work out to about 14 cents per egg. All of these numbers allow for some waste and inefficiencies so costs could be a bit lower. With 270 birds (165 eggs/day) labor to maintain birds, wash, and package the quail eggs works out to about 2 hrs a day with efficiency increasing if I later expand. Due to a sloped wire floor the eggs automatically roll to the collection bin and cage cleaning is minimal. At 18 cents profit/egg (.32 cent sell price) that's only about $15/hr for my labor at first but perhaps things can grow and efficiency increases. I've seen quail eggs for eating prices ranging from .25 (direct from a farm, 100 egg minimum) to .96 plus shipping (Amazon.com) a packaged egg so .32 sounds like a price that may work when sold by the dozen. This is work I can easily fit into my daily schedule. Unfortunately it's also a 7 day a week job although there are plenty on teenagers close by who could cover a day per week for me. With the size of the building expansion to over 3200 birds is very possible and I've got a 400 sf room with water that can be dedicated to egg cleaning and packaging.

Within 20 miles are at least 3 stores that may be willing to carry these eggs and they would probably sell them at about $6 a dozen. With time perhaps I could grow the business. When the birds get 2 1/2 years old (quail live about 4 years) and laying slows I can sell them to businesses the put quail out to hunt making a small final profit off each bird. I'd start with 50 birds and see if things grow.

So I'm asking if this seems like a realistic small business prospect and do my costs sound correct? If it did grow costs would drop and with time selling opportunities may grow if I expanded towards the huge city 70 miles away.


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

My wife sells Quail eggs. She only has about 20 Quail right now, but her best market comes from the Hispanics in our local area. They use them in parties and special events. 
My sister ran about 150 for a few years. She had USDA papers, and sold them to oriental restaurants. 
They are easy keepers, and don't eat a whole lot, relatively. So if you have a market, I say give it a whirl. If nothing else, the little buggers are entertaining. We learned if you talk to them and handle them when young, as adults they will still be hopping in your hands to be petted.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

I'd get the USDA papers so I could sell through markets and to restaurants but selling then a dozen at a time is too labor intensive for me to conceder it profitable. @Coastie dad


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

Listen to Coastie. He knows a lot about raising birds. AZ Rancher too.

I have never raised any kind of bird. But we do have weird looking quails living by us in AZ. (We just moved to AZ about 6 months back.) The things are small and fast as hell. They have a flip like Elvis. They look like they would be an absolute exercise in frustration to hunt, but I am going to give them a whirl once we get our house built.


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## azrancher (Dec 14, 2014)

I heard my name... I never tried to sell quail eggs locally, first thing you need to research is the market for them. I did sell quail hatching eggs on the Internet both Ebay and a place that no longer exists due to Ebay which was EggBay, seems like Ebay owns the idea of an auction site with bay in the name... pricks!!! Fertile hatching eggs would sell for $2.00 each on down to $.50 each, early is better, use lights. Chukars are also popular to raise, and I never sold their eggs for less than $.50 either, I was raising them for Bird Dog trainers, as here in AZ you can't hunt farm raised native quail, something about a hunting permit and season, and how does the Game Warden know if they were farm birds or native birds. Live Chukar for training go for $5.00 - $8.00 each, but you must have a market for them, and trainers that are willing to book them so you can hatch, or buy chicks so you only feed for 16 weeks, or if you don't there is no money in it. So if you are raising quail for later harvesting by hunters make sure of your Game and Fish laws, here we can use Chukars and Bobwhite quail for training.

*Rancher*


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## rstanek (Nov 9, 2012)

Did you also consider the life of each bird as far as egg laying, because I wonder what the market would be for a butchered and cleaned bird after their egg laying life is past, kind of like rotating your stock. That's what we would do with chickens, I know there is a significant size difference.


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

John Galt said:


> I'd get the USDA papers so I could sell through markets and to restaurants but selling then a dozen at a time is too labor intensive for me to conceder it profitable. @Coastie dad


Oh, totally understand. It's just a hobby for the wife. What I was meaning that the idea sounds good, and there is definitely a market. She's just not interested in getting into the effort. I realize i wasn't very clear in regards to what you are wanting to do.
But they are easy to care for, and the slant cages are wonderful. My sister used them.
Ever tried pickled quail eggs? Good seller at small markets, but labor intensive on the scale your envisioning.


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

@Inor is trying to make me blush.....

Rancher would know a lot more about production. We just tinker on a small scale.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

I watched a video on pickling quail eggs, looks pretty labor intensive.

My current business has been slowing the last few years and I've still got another 10 years before I'd even conceder retiring and a second source of income would be handy. 
My current business started as a hobby I had and later began selling what my hobby made as a way to pay for the hobby. It later turned into a solid money maker with seasonal employees but my customers are getting older and sales slowly dropping over the years as younger people have different interests.. I was thinking that perhaps I could do the same thing and slowly grow the quail business to fill the gap. This is a bird area full of chicken houses so bulk feed is available if the business grew.

But to get that first customer or two I'd need to have the eggs ready to go. The initial expense would be about $600 (50 birds, cages, egg containers, ect) but if they don't sell I'm stuck with a load of birds and eggs that require daily care. I'm not interested in quail as pets and don't need the eggs for personal consumption. Quail are common on my property and nest in the front yard so if things got too bad I guess I could just turn them loose.


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

A friend of mine raised pheasants. When kept confined together, they would kill each other unless their beaks and spurs were cut. It was extra work that he hated to do. I don't know if that applies to quail.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

azrancher said:


> I heard my name... I never tried to sell quail eggs locally, first thing you need to research is the market for them. I did sell quail hatching eggs on the Internet both Ebay and a place that no longer exists due to Ebay which was EggBay, seems like Ebay owns the idea of an auction site with bay in the name... pricks!!! Fertile hatching eggs would sell for $2.00 each on down to $.50 each, early is better, use lights. Chukars are also popular to raise, and I never sold their eggs for less than $.50 either, I was raising them for Bird Dog trainers, as here in AZ you can't hunt farm raised native quail, something about a hunting permit and season, and how does the Game Warden know if they were farm birds or native birds. Live Chukar for training go for $5.00 - $8.00 each, but you must have a market for them, and trainers that are willing to book them so you can hatch, or buy chicks so you only feed for 16 weeks, or if you don't there is no money in it. So if you are raising quail for later harvesting by hunters make sure of your Game and Fish laws, here we can use Chukars and Bobwhite quail for training.
> 
> *Rancher*


M&M farms is about 6 miles away from me and they actually send boxes of quail out using the Post Office to TX for hunting on a bi-weekly basis but they sell only hunting quail with no eggs (500,000 quail sold last year). I would be more interested in the egg sales side with no fertile eggs except for maintaining the flock at first. Meat production with it's processing requirements may come later but I'm more interested in egg production since the sanitary and processing requirements are much lower.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

Rancher, How did you package the fertilized eggs for shipping? @azrancher


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

Yeah...my interest is up. We have a huge two story barn that half of the second floor is empty....I could have several hundred quail up there....


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## ffparamedic (Dec 14, 2015)

Very profitable business in our area, a friend of mine did it for a while. He incubated them and sold them for $3 each live....$4 dressed, very good business.

Rabbits are also good in my area (New Zealand meat rabbits) I raise those as a hobby for personal consumption. Their poop sells for $25/5 lbs on eBay....Doesn't take long to get 5 lb....So it's also another good business model to look into.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk


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## ffparamedic (Dec 14, 2015)

ffparamedic said:


> Very profitable business in our area, a friend of mine did it for a while. He incubated them and sold them for $3 each live....$4 dressed, very good business.
> 
> Rabbits are also good in my area (New Zealand meat rabbits) I raise those as a hobby for personal consumption. Their poop sells for $25/5 lbs on eBay....Doesn't take long to get 5 lb....So it's also another good business model to look into.
> 
> Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk


The bunnies sell for $10-15 each.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

We've done well with rabbits, for sale and for meat.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

Rabbits aren't much in demand around here. The problem with selling anything dressed around here in the expense of making and maintaining a "food safe" area so unless it's a large scale operation I don't see how to make money selling any dressed meats..


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## Coastie dad (Jan 2, 2016)

We just always sell live rabbits. Butcher for ourselves.


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## azrancher (Dec 14, 2014)

John Galt said:


> Rancher, How did you package the fertilized eggs for shipping? @azrancher


Well you have to buy the foam for the eggs, several places sell it, like GQF, Cutler Supply, B&D Game Birds, Red Oak Game used to... it's not cheap, but you factor it into the shipping charge, it's made to fit into a #7 USPS Priority Mail "free" box, which is 12"X12" by about 8", think it hold 3 layers of eggs, a layer is a 3/8" square foam, then the egg cutout foam, and another 3/8" foam. With fertilized eggs you may have problems with the FedEx who used to be the Priority Mail contractor to USPS as the airplane transport because I think they XRAY everything.

*Rancher*


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

Thanks, I'll save the information in case I decide to move forward with this. @azrancher


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