I have read about raising baby quail by providing them with a mother chicken because mother quail don’t know how to forage or teach their young how to. What I had never heard of before was that some folks are raising quail to cure hay fever allergies and eczema. It turns out that eating organic quail eggs provides an active enzyme that can actually cure allergies, hay fever and even eczema.

It seems they can actually make a pill with the extract from the quail eggs that will provide the enzyme but unfortunately it is not available in the US. You can buy fresh quail eggs here and also canned boiled quail eggs here.  I have ordered some of the canned ones. I figure I can add them to salads and see if they will help with my allergies. While you may be able to find some quail eggs in certain stores, make sure they are organic because quail are kept in dark places in wire cages and just laying machines. This is not only sad but I am not sure the eggs would provide the enzyme if they could not forage. They may but I think it would be so much better to have your own quail that could forage and lay organic eggs for you. To raise quail you should have an Ardenner hen to be the mom. They seem to be the best suited to mothering baby quail. One thing I learned in this article from The Holistic Hen is that while the hn is sitting on the eggs to hatch them, you should take her off the eggs every morning because she may break the eggs if you leave her to get off by herself.

I found this article very informative and I am starting to feel that I might be able to raise quail now that I have learned a lot more about it. The lessons learned in this were in some part rather humorous. One of the chickens couldn’t stand mice and when the quail started hatching she was snatching up all of the darker colored ones and throwing them across the room. Her owner had to take the babies back and prove to the hen that they were in fact baby birds and not mice lol.

Read more>>>>>   http://holistic-hen.blogspot.com/2012/03/getting-started-with-organic-coturnix.html#.VxVYKTEwK6l