My quail chicks...

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Nice pics. How many did you start out with? Did you hatch them from eggs? If so, how many eggs did you start with. I've always wondered how hard it is to raise quail and pheasants.

Yes, I hatched them from eggs. I started out with 29 eggs (ordered 25 from the hatchery...they sent a few extra; from what I've learned, this seems to be a common practice). I bought myself a hovabator incubator with automatic egg turner for my first run. (I have made a couple incubators of my own from styrofoam coolers....lots of info on how to do it on youtube.) I screwed up and didn't add enough water to keep the humidity up when I set the eggs to hatch at the end of the incubation period. I hatched out 4 eggs; one chick died a few days later....not sure why. I checked the eggs post mortem and found that 12 of them weren't even fertile.....I had them sent from a hatchery in OK, and it took them 4 days to get here, so who knows what temp/handling conditions they faced on the trip.
I don't think it is all that hard, if you have the space. The three birds I have are in a large plastic tub in the basement under a heat lamp; they are now full grown and will go out to the pen in the backyard tomorrow. I plan on trying this again next year, but will do a few things a little differently. For one, I will plan on picking up the eggs from a local source, if possible, rather than have them ship.

ALL he had were bobwhite, so I think part of the thing there is that the breeds are crossed up enough sometimes the traits for a different breed just pop out.

The white birds are Texas A&M quail; the brown bird is a corturnix....same species, different variety. However, I paid for WHITE quail, not the regular one. Someone at the hatchery wasn't very careful about sorting eggs is all that happened.....another reason not to go with this hatchery, IMO.