Coturnix lifespans

[Mo_fawaazzz]

Has anybody here had a Coturnix live for more than 2 years?

I need a breeding+harvesting routine for these birds. Should I keep late-summer eggs under a broody hen and cull the older adults after winter to make room for the new generation? Or can the adults stay around for longer? At what age do the hens stop laying.

I pasture my quail during the day time and they have ample exercise.

 

[Nabiki]

They can live 3-5 years, but they usually start declining in fertility and egg laying at about 2 years. Male fertility usually starts to drop at about 18 months.

 

[Whraith]

I keep my birds for eggs and supplemental meat.

I hatch out twice a year, possibly a third if I didn't get to hold back what I needed from the two (or if something happens, I was down to 1 of my roux calico fee males due to one not making it after an injury so I quickly set a batch of eggs to replace him).

Males are replaced normally at that time, sometimes I may keep a particularly good one until the second hatch. Females are replaced at 1 to 1.5 years.

My birds have winter light so lay year round hence the fairly often cycling out. I only keep about 20 birds, 16 hens and about 3-4 roo's.

 

[Kingbobkingdom]

My female quail stopped laying at 2.5 - 3 years old, and I got rid of my males at 2 years old.
I would get rid of both females and males before the 2 year mark.

 

[Quail Buddy]

Has anybody here had a Coturnix live for more than 2 years?

I need a breeding+harvesting routine for these birds. Should I keep late-summer eggs under a broody hen and cull the older adults after winter to make room for the new generation? Or can the adults stay around for longer? At what age do the hens stop laying.

I pasture my quail during the day time and they have ample exercise.

Would you mind elaborating on how you pasture yours during the day? Mine were delayed in starting to lay eggs and several on here thought it was because I was moving them outside in AM and back inside in afternoon, upsetting them.

I hated to but I moved them into a building under artificial lights, they still took 4 more weeks to start laying. They were 10-11 weeks old when they all truly started laying, and had been transferred to gamebird breeder formula at 8 weeks.

 

[Mo_fawaazzz]

Would you mind elaborating on how you pasture yours during the day? Mine were delayed in starting to lay eggs and several on here thought it was because I was moving them outside in AM and back inside in afternoon, upsetting them.

I hated to but I moved them into a building under artificial lights, they still took 4 more weeks to start laying. They were 10-11 weeks old when they all truly started laying, and had been transferred to gamebird breeder formula at 8 weeks.

I let mine out in a big planted pen during the day time and I put them in their coop at night.

I haven’t constructed a new coop yet, so my quail uses the pullet grow-out coop for now. I might place a floor coop inside their pen so that they can be herded in and locked up at night.

 

[Stumars]

Ours were pets, the girls passed between 2 and just after 2. George is approaching 3 and still going strong

 

[coffee_and_quail]

Has anybody here had a Coturnix live for more than 2 years?

I need a breeding+harvesting routine for these birds. Should I keep late-summer eggs under a broody hen and cull the older adults after winter to make room for the new generation? Or can the adults stay around for longer? At what age do the hens stop laying.

I pasture my quail during the day time and they have ample exercise.

Our oldest are around 2 years and 7 months, 2 hens and a roo. The male is still virile as ever, and both hens are still laying (one has currently been broody for 2 weeks!) There are so many variables....where the original eggs were sourced from, their diet and environment, etc.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Think my oldest was 3.5 years. Second oldest was 2.5

 

[Stumars]

Our girls passed away around 2.5 years, George is still going strong approaching 3 years old. Still humping anything with feathers that moves