Quail Egg Production Calculator

How many eggs do quail lay?

Coturnix quail lay up to 280 to 300 eggs per year, which outpaces most chicken breeds on a per-bird basis. They start laying at just 7 weeks, where chickens take 18 to 22 weeks to reach point of lay. That early start changes the entire economic picture.

Those yearly totals assume the hens are lit. Poultry Extension puts the requirement at 14 to 18 hours of light per day to maintain egg production, and Coturnix are light-driven layers, so in the short days of autumn and winter production falls off unless you add a timer and a bulb to hold the day length up. A flock laying well in June can drop by half in December with no extra light — that halving is our own observation rather than a published figure, though the direction is not in doubt.

Three practical points from the research. Intensity can be low: studies on laying Japanese quail find around 15 lux is enough, dimmer than most people assume, so a small bulb on a timer does the job. Consistency matters more than brightness — University of Georgia, writing about Bobwhite, warns that once day length is up, “any sudden decrease in hours of light per day will cause a decline in egg production”, so raise it gradually and never cut it back sharply. And light only the layers: birds grown for meat, and males you are not breeding from, do not need a long day.

Second-year decline is gentler than in chickens. Our Coturnix figure holds 85 percent of year one against roughly 75 percent for hens; our Bobwhite figure is 80 percent, so the “85 percent” shorthand applies to Coturnix only. Quail eggs are small — Poultry Extension puts the average at about 10 grams, roughly 8 percent of the bird’s body weight, so about five make one large chicken egg — but the birds lay so frequently that the count more than makes up for the size.

A note on where these figures come from. Laying age, the light requirement and the 10 g egg weight follow Poultry Extension’s guidance on Japanese quail. The Bobwhite figure of about 100 eggs a season is University of Georgia Extension’s. The layer ration and the 2.75% calcium requirement follow Mississippi State Extension Publication 2383. The one number those sources do not supply is the most prominent on the page: no extension source publishes an annual egg total for Coturnix, so the 280 figure and the age tiers built on it are our own, and the Sources section below sets out exactly which figures are ours and which are not. If your flock performs differently, the contact page is at the top of the site.

Quail egg yield by species and age

These are the per-hen figures the calculator scores against. They assume good gamebird feed and 14 to 18 hours of daily light; short winter days without supplemental lighting will pull every number down.

Read the Bobwhite row with care. University of Georgia Extension puts a healthy Bobwhite hen at approximately 100 eggs a season, which is the figure we now use, and says that with artificial light or year-round production using preseason lighting output “may vary from 50-200+ eggs a year”. An unlit backyard flock sits at the lower end of that, not the middle. The section below explains what these birds actually are.

Bobwhite are a game bird, not a laying bird

This is the thing to understand before reading the Bobwhite row at all. Northern Bobwhite are a game species, close to their wild ancestors, and the industry around them exists to supply meat, flight birds for hunting preserves, and release stock. Mississippi State’s feeding publication frames Bobwhite production entirely around meat-type and flight birds, and says plainly that the quail “used for meat or egg production are coturnix or pharaoh quail”, which “are seldom raised for hunting”. If you want eggs, Coturnix are the bird.

Their laying reflects that. University of Georgia Extension puts a healthy Bobwhite hen at approximately 100 eggs a season, laid in clutches of 12 to 16 with multiple clutches under good management. Output rises only under a deliberate lighting programme — UGA gives a range of 50 to 200+ eggs a year with artificial light or year-round production using preseason lighting, and recommends a 17-hour day begun in December to bring hens into lay in January.

We use UGA’s 100 a season as the first-year figure. This page previously used 200, which sits at the very top of UGA’s range and describes a lit, year-round commercial operation rather than a backyard pen — and it contradicted our own Quail Feed Cost Calculator, which tells readers we have no laying figure for Bobwhite because they are kept mainly for meat and flight. Two things even 100 does not capture: Bobwhite are seasonal layers, so an unlit flock simply stops for part of the year; and unlike Coturnix they go broody, sitting a clutch and pausing laying until the eggs hatch or are removed. If your birds are unlit and allowed to sit, expect to land below 100 rather than above it.

Coturnix will not sit their own eggs

Worth stating because it cuts both ways. Roughly two thousand years of domestication have bred broodiness almost entirely out of Coturnix: they lay prolifically and then walk away from the eggs. That absence is precisely why a figure like 280 a year is achievable at all — there is no broody pause to break, no clutch-and-sit cycle interrupting the run. On our Turkey Egg Production Calculator, by contrast, letting hens sit roughly halves the annual total.

The trade-off is that you will need an incubator to reproduce your flock. Coturnix hens very rarely go broody, and a keeper planning to hatch replacements should budget for an incubator rather than expecting the birds to do it. Bobwhite are the opposite: they retain the instinct, which is one more reason their annual totals run lower.

How long to keep a hen

Coturnix start laying at about 7 weeks — Poultry Extension says they “mature in about six weeks and are able to produce eggs by seven weeks” — and the first year is the peak. The same source is conservative about the far end, saying only that they “will continue to produce eggs economically for at least a year”.

Our model runs three tiers, and it is worth being explicit about what each means. First year is the peak. Second year holds 85 percent of it for Coturnix and 80 percent for Bobwhite. Mixed ages is 75 percent for Coturnix and 70 percent for Bobwhite — deliberately below a simple year-one/year-two average, because it assumes a flock that includes some third-year and older birds still being carried.

There is no third-year tier, and that is a choice rather than an oversight: we found no published figure for third-year quail production, and would rather point you at the mixed tier than invent one. If your hens are in their third year or beyond, use “mixed ages” and treat the result as optimistic. Most keepers replace their layers at the end of the second year, keeping a rolling group so a new cohort comes into lay as the old one falls off — at 7 weeks to first egg, that is a much shorter gap to cover than with chickens.

The quail egg market advantage

Quail eggs sell for $3 to $8 per dozen at farmers markets, against $4 to $6 for chicken eggs. Specialty grocery stores, Asian markets, and sushi restaurants actively seek them out, so demand is steadier than it is for backyard chicken eggs.

The per-unit premium more than compensates for the smaller size. A flock of 20 Coturnix can generate meaningful side income in a way that 20 chickens in a city cannot, partly because zoning rules almost always allow more quail than chickens, and partly because the buyers are different. Quail eggs are a specialty product, not a commodity.

Quail vs chicken egg economics

Run the numbers on a 10-bird Coturnix flock and the contrast with chickens is stark:

• 10 Coturnix hens produce roughly 2,800 eggs per year, or 233 dozen.
• Feed runs roughly $6 to $8 a month, about $72 to $96 a year for 10 birds, depending on bag price and how many males you feed.
• At $4 per dozen, the annual egg value is roughly $930.
• Net savings land in the mid-$800s after feed.

For comparison, 10 chickens produce about 2,400 eggs but cost roughly $250 per year in feed. The quail flock produces more eggs for a fraction of the feed bill, and on a much smaller footprint.

One honest caveat: that egg value is only real if you actually eat or sell the eggs. If you would not otherwise buy 200-plus dozen quail eggs a year, read the figure as the grocery cost you avoid plus whatever you sell, not pure profit.

Common mistakes

1. Keeping too many males. Males do not lay, so a male-heavy flock drags down overall egg production.
2. Not separating eggs daily. Quail will quickly eat cracked or dirty eggs left in the cage.
3. Letting winter day length stop the flock. Without 14 to 18 hours of light, laying slows or stops in the dark months — and cutting the day length back suddenly stops it just as fast.
4. Assuming quail eggs taste the same as chicken. They are richer and distinctly flavored, which is a selling point rather than a drawback.

Where to go next

Egg yield connects to the other quail decisions and the chicken comparison:

• The Quail Feed Cost Calculator gives you the monthly feed figure this calculator needs as an input.
• The Quail Cage Size Calculator tells you how many hens your space can support.
• The Egg Production Calculator runs the same numbers for a flock of chickens.
• The Family Egg Calculator works out how many layers your household actually needs.

Sources

• Coturnix laying age, light requirement and egg weight: Poultry Extension — “Raising Japanese Quail in Small and Backyard Flocks.” “Japanese quail mature in about six weeks and are able to produce eggs by seven weeks”; they “require 14 to 18 hours of light per day to maintain egg production”; “the average egg weighs about 10 grams—roughly 8% of the body weight of a quail”; and they “will continue to produce eggs economically for at least a year”. It gives no annual egg total.
• Bobwhite laying range, clutch size and preseason lighting: University of Georgia Extension — “Bobwhite Quail Production and Management Guide” (W. A. Dozier III and K. Bramwell, Poultry Science Department). A healthy Bobwhite hen lays approximately 100 eggs a season; with artificial light or year-round production using preseason lighting, output “may vary from 50-200+ eggs a year”. A healthy hen produces 12 to 16 eggs per clutch across multiple clutches. For year-round lay a 17-hour day is recommended, begun in December; once reached, “any sudden decrease in hours of light per day will cause a decline in egg production”.
• Layer ration, calcium, and the Coturnix-vs-Bobwhite purpose distinction: Mississippi State University Extension — Publication 2383, “Feeding Quail.” Quail layers need 18% protein and 2.75% calcium; mature layers fed anything else show “reduced egg production and more thin-shelled eggs”. Bobwhite production is framed around meat-type and flight birds, while the quail “used for meat or egg production are coturnix or pharaoh quail”, which “are seldom raised for hunting”. Also cited on our Quail Feed Cost Calculator.

A correction to something we have written elsewhere on this site: on the other two quail calculators we said extension coverage of Coturnix was essentially absent. That was too strong. Poultry Extension does publish a Japanese quail page, cited above, and it is the source for the laying age, light requirement and egg weight used here. What remains true is that no extension source we can find publishes an annual egg total for Coturnix — which is why the single most important number on this page is ours.

What is ours rather than published: the six per-hen constants (280/238/210 Coturnix, 100/80/70 Bobwhite), with one exception. The Bobwhite first-year figure of 100 is UGA’s — their stated figure for a healthy hen in a season; the second-year and mixed values scale from it and are ours. The Coturnix 280 has no extension source at all, and is the least supported number on the page. So is the three-tier age structure, including the mixed tier at 75% of year one for Coturnix and 70% for Bobwhite, which assumes a flock carrying some third-year birds; there is no published third-year figure and we have not invented one. So is the “drop by half in December” figure, which is our own observation, and all price figures — the $4.00 default, the $3–8 range, the $200–400 setup band, and the per-currency defaults. The calculator applies no lighting adjustment: every figure assumes a lit flock, and an unlit one will fall short.