People wanting to be more self sufficient have been flocking to raising chickens.
But these birds can be time and space consuming. Not to mention several cities like Fairborn, Beavercreek, Kettering and Huber Heights have banned them in residential neighborhoods.
In response to these obstacles, a couple in Fairborn who run Happy Wife Acres dove into learning how to raise a smaller and less disruptive egg layer: quail.
“Last year I sold 482 live quail and 594 hatching eggs to a total of 68 customers," said Andrea Hancock, co-owner of Happy Wife Acres. "I've already got 109 quail on order right now to eight customers, and we haven't started yet.”
John and Andrea Hancock of Happy Wife Acres are dedicated to providing resources and education for individuals seeking a self-sufficient life. That effort now includes selling fertilized quail eggs, live birds and more.
"Our side of helping to solve food insecurity is not buying people to fish, it's teaching them how to fish," John Hancock said.
In fact, the Hancocks keep an antique, World War I-era poster from the USDA to show just how much the nation's reliance on self-sufficiency has changed.
"It's the government saying Uncle Sam — not wishes — wants you to have chickens. Wants you to raise chickens," he said. “In a little over 100 years, we have gone from the government wishing you would have a chicken to governments strictly prohibiting you from having chickens.”
Smaller, quieter, and less wait time for eggs
In those communities that do restrict backyard chickens, the Hancocks said the quail they raise and sell could be a sustainable alternative.
The small birds are less noisy and produce eggs in just six weeks, compared to the 20 weeks it takes their chicken counterparts.
"It's gamey-ish, but somewhere in between. It's not chicken, it's not duck, it's a really nice happy medium."
“They won't destroy your neighbor's flower bed, they won't jump your fence, they won't get out in traffic because they stay in a cage all the time," he said.
According to the Hancocks, starting up any bird raising operation can cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000 dollars. But Andrea Hancock said quails can provide a quicker return on investment.
"They're probably the shortest turnaround for getting something out of it," she said. "Six weeks to get an egg, seven weeks they're fully grown. At seven weeks, we process all of our extra boys."
They lay eggs daily once they reach maturity, providing fresh and frequent eggs for up to nine months. After that, they can be harvested for their dark meat, which John Hancock said is less messy to process at home.
"It's gamey-ish, but somewhere in between," he said. "It's not chicken, it's not duck, it's a really nice happy medium."
But those quick growth and laying rates have to be supported with a heartier feed that provides about twice the amount of protein in typical chicken feed. They also require 14 to 16 hours of daylight to continue laying eggs in the colder, darker months of the year.
"And those two things right there keep them laying. They serve us well and then their final act is to feed us," John Hancock said.
While the tiny birds do grow fast, that also means they metabolize their food faster. John Hancock said that leads to more frequent cage cleanings.
"I know it's filled with poop right now, but it's cleaned every single night, they're serviced with food every night and they have sand," he said. "So this is non-silica play sand that you buy at the hardware store. So it serves as grit, it serves to (help) them get rid of parasites."
Promoting quail, homesteading
Despite the cleaning and care process, the Hancocks are big proponents of backyard quails, especially because it can be hard to come by the product locally.
John Hancock said Myshire Farm in Miamisburg is another local quail producer but due to higher bio-security measures, they do not let any customers purchase products on-site and only allow shipment orders.
"So we get customers because they live a few miles from them and they go 'I'm not paying the shipping for them to go down to Cincinnati and back to me and maybe half of them die,'" he said.
Andrea Hancock said they do work to promote other local producers and re-route customers when their own stock is low.
Last year the Hancocks offered over 30 in-person classes about homesteading and self-sufficient practices and they plan to continue to offer more diverse lessons in the future.
"We always offer a lot more when you come here," said Andrea Hancock. "So like our quail classes here, they got to do the tour, they got to eat meat that they had just seen processed."
The pair also teach about food and farming practices through videos on their YouTube channel.
