If you live near San Rafael and San Ildelfonso Bulacan you could find some backyard quail raisers. According to them pugo raising started in San Rafael and it’s spread throughout the Bulacan area.
Many are enticed to venture in this business because you need only a small space and capital to start. And everyday your income is tangible once it started to lay.
Here are the most common breeds of quail in the Philippines:
Japanese Seattle
Japanese Taiwan
Negro
Silver
Tuxedo
Price of stock:
The price of the quail would range from 7 pesos to 30 pesos. One farmer told me around 2 years ago he bought the quail for 7 pesos each and the quail is around 90% all female. The other 10 percent is male and this should be culled. The ratio of female is high because before the breeder delivered the quail they have already tried to identified the sex of the quail ( as much as possible they give you all female). Another scheme in buying the quail is the Mix sex, here the quail is delivered as is and the possibility of male to female ratio is 50-50 but the price is also half. If the usual price is 7 pesos the unsex would range to 3.50 pesos.
Housing:
Usually a 2 feet by 4 feet cage would hold around 50 quail. You could find a quail housing on top of one another (battery type). A ¼ inch mesh wire is used for the flooring and the wall/sides. This setup would provide good air circulation.
Feeding:
There are different articles in the net that will tell you how much to give per day per bird But most of this is not really that applicable. When buying a feed for the first time and you don’t know how much to feed the animal always ask the feed distributor or the breeder on which your quail came from. They have the most accurate idea on how much to give.
Just to give a practical idea a quail would eat chick booster for the first 2 weeks of it’s life. It would eat from 5 grams per day up. After the two weeks you will shift to chick starter and you will give this to the quail up to the time that 30% of the quail population lays egg. When you attain 30% you will then shift to quail laying feeds. Price of Quail laying feeds would range from 800-1000 pesos.
Egg Production:
An average of 80% per day. To some extent around 90% egg production. Egg price would range from 0.60 centavos to 0.80 centavos per egg.