Today, we harvested six male quail from our flock. We should have done it sooner, but this summer has been full of delays. Now that we are ready to move the chickens to the new pen on the farm site, we had to take care of these quail. Why are those things connected? Well… the wire mesh pens that the quail were living in are the carrying pens for the chickens. At some point, we repurposed them and building new carrying pens never rose to the top of my to-do list.
Attentive readers who noted the subtle allusion in the 5/25/24 post already know we have a shortage of female quail. At present, we have only three females laying eggs and eight males. Fortunately we had enough pens to keep apart the more-aggressive males, but we seriously needed to reduce their numbers. We’ll keep the best two for breeding and move the remainder to the freezer, where their aggressiveness will not be an issue.
At harvest time, it is FAR simpler than preparing a chicken. After a quick dunk in hot water, their feathers simply wipe off!
I use a pair of scissors to cut along each side of the spine. Once the spine is removed, one paper towel per bird is all it takes to get the body cavity cleaned out. I start at the top and wipe downwards with a scrubbing motion. After reaching the lower end of the bird, I pull off the vent and oil gland and drop the paper towel into the entrails bucket.
We prefer to complete the major tasks outdoors and then take the birds inside for final cleaning and packaging. Two quail will make a decent meal for one person and the meat tastes slightly like duck.
This quail looks simply delicious.
Are you considering selling the roosters for meat?
I am enjoying those touches of humor, as well.