Quail Farming in Ghana: A Beginner Guide to Eggs and Meat

A trader in Kasoa Zongo came to us in 2023 with a problem that sounds like a luxury: she had a single spare room behind her shop, no land, and about two thousand cedis to invest in livestock. Broilers were out of the question in that space. Layers would take five months to pay anything back. She wanted something that produced income within two months and did not smell out the shop. We sold her a hundred Japanese quail chicks. By week seven she was collecting seventy eggs a day and selling them in packs of twelve to a pharmacy and two supermarkets on the Kasoa–Winneba road.

Quail farming is small in Ghana compared with broilers and layers, but it is growing steadily, and it suits exactly the kind of person who has limited space, limited capital and a need for quick turnover. A quail hen weighs barely 150 grams, lays an egg almost every day from six weeks of age, and eats around 25 grams of feed daily. Three hundred quail fit comfortably in a space that would hold forty layers.

It is also easy to get wrong. Quail are not miniature chickens. Their feed needs are different, their incubation is shorter, their temperament is nervous, and their market is niche and needs to be built before the eggs start piling up. This guide is what we tell farmers who come to our Kasoa hatchery asking about quail: the breed to use, how to house and feed them, how to hatch them, and how to sell what they produce.

Which quail to keep in Ghana

Almost every commercial quail in Ghana is the Japanese quail, Coturnix japonica, sometimes just called Coturnix. It is the species bred for egg production and it matures faster than any other domestic bird. Within the species you will find several colour lines: the wild-type brown (sometimes called Pharaoh), the golden or Manchurian, the white-breasted Tuxedo, and the larger Jumbo lines selected for meat. In practical Ghanaian terms the differences matter less than the source. A hen from a well-managed egg line will lay 250 to 300 eggs in her first year; a hen from an inbred backyard flock may lay 150 and be prone to leg problems.

If your plan is eggs, ask specifically for an egg line, and expect hens to weigh 140 to 180 grams at maturity. If your plan is meat for restaurants and grilled-quail sellers, a Jumbo line reaching 250 to 300 grams live at six to seven weeks gives a far better carcass. Some farmers try to run one flock for both, which works but delivers a mediocre result on each side. Decide first, then buy.

Starting stock: chicks, point-of-lay or hatching eggs

There are three ways in, and each suits a different farmer.

• Day-old quail chicks are the cheapest per bird and let you control brooding and vaccination from the start. You will need a brooder ready and you must accept that roughly half will be males unless you buy a colour-sexable line.
• Point-of-lay hens at five to six weeks cost more but skip brooding entirely. Buy from a farm you can inspect, check for clean vents and bright eyes, and expect eggs within one to two weeks of settling.
• Fertile hatching eggs are the cheapest route for someone who already owns an incubator. Quail eggs travel badly and lose hatchability fast, so buy from within a day or two of travel and set them within a week of lay.

Whichever route you choose, insist on birds from a flock with no history of coryza or ulcerative enteritis, and quarantine any adult birds away from an existing flock for two weeks.

Prices are orientation figures gathered from farmers and buyers around Kasoa and Accra. They move with feed cost and season; confirm live before budgeting.

Housing: cages, not deep litter

Japanese quail can be kept on deep litter, but almost nobody who has tried both goes back. On litter they scratch eggs into the shavings, lay in corners, get dirty feet and are hard to catch. In wire cages the eggs roll forward to a collection tray, droppings fall through to a manure board, and one person can manage a thousand birds in an hour a day. For an egg flock, tiered cages are the standard.

The numbers that matter: allow 150 to 200 square centimetres of floor per bird, which means a cage of 100 cm by 50 cm holds 25 to 30 laying hens comfortably. Cage height should be low, about 20 to 25 cm, because quail flush straight upward when startled and a tall cage lets them build enough speed to scalp themselves on the roof. Some farmers fit a strip of soft mesh or foam under the cage top for the same reason. The floor should be 12 mm by 12 mm welded mesh or smaller, sloped about 8 to 10 degrees toward the egg tray. Larger mesh traps legs.

Ventilation matters more than most people expect. Quail droppings are wetter and higher in ammonia than chicken droppings, and a closed room with tiered cages becomes an ammonia box within days. Site the cages where air moves across them, clean manure boards daily or every second day, and keep the room out of direct afternoon sun. In the Kasoa heat we have seen quail rooms hit 36 °C in March, and at that point hens drop eggs and males stop working. A fan on a timer is cheap insurance. Our general ventilation guide applies just as well to a quail room as to a broiler shed.

Brooding quail chicks: hotter, smaller, faster

A day-old quail chick weighs 6 to 8 grams, about a sixth of a broiler chick, and it loses heat just as fast. Brooding follows the same logic as brooding chicken chicks, with three adjustments. First, start hotter: 35 to 37 °C at chick level in the first three days, dropping about 3 °C a week until room temperature around week three. Second, block every gap. Quail chicks squeeze through chicken wire and drown in ordinary chick drinkers; use a drinker with marbles or small stones in the trough for the first week, and line the brooder with cardboard or fine mesh. Third, they feather and finish brooding in about three weeks, not four or five.

Feed them a quail or game-bird starter with 26 to 28 percent protein. Broiler starter at 21 to 22 percent will keep them alive but growth stalls and hens come into lay late. Where a true game-bird starter is unavailable, many Ghanaian quail farmers blend broiler starter with fish meal or soya to lift protein. Crumble the feed fine for the first week; the beak is tiny and pellets get ignored.

Expect 3 to 5 percent brooding mortality from a good batch. Above 10 percent, look at cold, drowning, or a starter feed the chicks cannot pick up. Most of the general brooding rules in our day-old chick brooding guide apply directly.

Feeding for eggs: protein and calcium

From about five weeks, move hens to a layer ration with 20 to 24 percent protein and 2.5 to 3 percent calcium. Commercial chicken layer mash at 16 to 17 percent protein is the most common mistake we see. Quail lay an egg that is 8 percent of their body weight almost every day, which is proportionally more than any chicken, and a low-protein diet quickly shows as small eggs, thin shells and a drop from 85 percent production to 60.

Practical feeding numbers: a laying hen eats 22 to 28 grams a day, so a hundred hens need 2.5 kg daily, or a 50 kg bag every three weeks. Feed twice a day into trough feeders with a lip to reduce spillage, because quail bill out feed aggressively and a shallow feeder can waste a fifth of what you pour. Provide oyster shell or crushed limestone in a separate small trough for hens to take as needed. Water must be constant; a laying quail without water for four hours drops eggs the next day. Nipple drinkers work well and keep the cage dry.

Lighting and the six-week miracle

Quail come into lay at 42 to 50 days if they have enough light. Hens need about 14 to 16 hours of light a day to lay at full rate, and in Ghana, where the day is close to 12 hours all year, that means adding 2 to 4 hours of artificial light. A single low-wattage bulb per 3 to 4 square metres, switched on before dawn or after dusk, is enough. Farmers who skip this see hens that lay well for a few weeks and then slide to 50 or 60 percent production. Do not blast them with bright light all night, which increases pecking; a dim, consistent supplement is the target. See our poultry lighting guide for wiring and timer options.

Peak production of 85 to 95 percent runs from about week 10 to week 30, then declines gradually. Most commercial quail farmers replace hens at 10 to 12 months, when production drops under 60 percent, and sell the spent hens for meat. A well-managed hen will have laid 250 to 300 eggs by then.

Breeding and hatching your own replacements

Once you have a flock you will want to hatch your own, because buying chicks every ten months is expensive and quail eggs cannot be bought fertile from just anywhere. Keep breeder pens separate from the egg flock, with one male to every three or four hens. A male is identified by the rusty-brown breast and the foam ball he produces from the vent when pressed gently; hens have speckled, cream breasts. Males start crowing at four to five weeks, a sound like a harsh, clipped whistle, and too many males in a cage will fight and scalp each other.

Quail eggs hatch in 17 to 18 days. Set them in a forced-air incubator at 37.5 °C and 50 to 55 percent humidity, turning at least three times a day, then stop turning on day 14 or 15 and raise humidity to 65 to 70 percent for hatching. Fertility in a good pen should run 85 to 90 percent and hatch of fertile eggs 75 to 85 percent. Quail eggs are speckled and hard to candle, so use a very bright torch in a dark room at day 7 and again at day 14, and expect to misjudge a few. Our candling guide explains what to look for. Set eggs no older than seven days; quail eggs lose hatchability faster than chicken eggs, and a two-week-old egg may hatch at half the rate of a fresh one.

Health: the problems we actually see

Quail are hardier than chickens against several diseases and do not normally need the full chicken vaccination programme. In most small Ghanaian quail units, no routine vaccination is done at all, though Newcastle disease vaccine is sometimes used where chickens are on the same site. Confirm with your veterinarian what is appropriate for your area, and never mix quail with chickens in one house; quail can carry and spread diseases to chickens and vice versa.

The problems that do turn up are practical ones:

• Ulcerative enteritis (quail disease): a bacterial infection causing sudden deaths in otherwise fat birds, with ulcers in the intestine on post-mortem. Spreads through droppings. Cage rearing and clean manure boards prevent most of it; treatment needs a veterinary diagnosis and prescription.
• Coccidiosis: less common in cages than on litter, but possible where droppings accumulate. Bloody or watery droppings and hunched, fluffed birds are the signs. See our coccidiosis guide.
• Feather pecking and scalping: almost always crowding, too many males, too much light or low protein. Fix the cause; do not just treat wounds.
• Egg binding: a small hen straining and standing upright with a swollen vent; usually a first egg that is too large or a calcium shortage.
• Heat stress: panting, wings held out, egg production collapsing in the hot months. Shade, fans and cool water fix it; vitamin C and electrolytes in water help during a heatwave.

Any medication must be given at the correct dose for such a small bird; a dose calculated for chickens can kill quail. Have a veterinarian confirm the dose and observe the withdrawal period before selling eggs or meat.

The market: where quail eggs and meat actually sell

This is where most new quail farmers fail, not in the cage. Quail eggs in Ghana sell to a specific set of buyers: pharmacies and health shops that market them as a nutritious food, supermarkets in Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi, restaurants and hotels that use them in salads and canapés, and a growing number of individual customers who buy for children or for their own perceived health benefits. Boiled and peeled quail eggs are also sold as a street snack in parts of Accra, sometimes on skewers alongside grilled quail.

Build the market before the eggs come. Take sample packs to pharmacies and supermarkets in your area during week four, when you already know how many hens you have. Package in clear plastic packs of 12 or 18 with a simple label and a date. Sell direct on WhatsApp to individuals and get them to refer friends. The pharmacy channel in particular pays a premium for clean, consistent, dated eggs. Our guides on selling poultry via WhatsApp and supplying supermarkets and hotels apply directly.

For meat, the buyers are grill and khebab sellers, restaurants serving Lebanese or continental menus, and hotels. Birds are dressed at six to eight weeks at 150 to 250 grams, plucked easily after a brief scald, and sold whole. Spent laying hens sell into the same channel at a lower price.

A worked example: 300 laying quail

Take a flock of 300 hens from point of lay. At 80 percent average production over ten months, that is 240 eggs a day and roughly 72,000 eggs in the cycle. At GH₵1 per egg farm-gate, gross egg income is around GH₵72,000. Feed at 25 grams per hen per day is 7.5 kg daily, or about 2,250 kg over ten months; at GH₵7 per kilogram that is roughly GH₵15,750. Add the birds themselves at around GH₵6,000, cages and equipment amortised over several cycles, light, labour and losses, and a well-run unit still shows a healthy margin before any meat sales from spent hens. The figures are orientation only, but they show why the trader from Kasoa Zongo was so pleased: the payback is fast and the space is tiny.

Frequently asked questions