Quail Bird Farming: Source of Livelihood to the Small Business Entrepreneurs

Quail Bird Farming that Mukti has started as a pilot project at “Mukti Sathi” Mrs. Rupa Das’s farm in Mukti Gram, Purba Sridharpur has now been proven successful. At present, she is having 1,500 Quail birds on her farm. Mukti has supported her with Quail birds and also provided her training through which she is now nurturing the birds and breeding. Every day the birds lay 200-250 eggs. For the past 8-9 months, she and her husband have been framing quail birds. The area of her farm is 250 square feet. Approximately 300 birds have been sold. She is working under the “Food for Work” project and Mukti is supporting her with monthly food and allowance. The produce has been proven to be a viable livelihood option for her.

Mukti has installed an incubator machine in Mrs. Bhadduri Purkait’s house to hatch the eggs. At regular intervals, she puts 100-150 eggs into the incubator for hatching. It takes 20-21 days to hatch the eggs. The meat and eggs of quail birds are very tasty and nutritious. In fact, their eggs contain more nutritious as compared to other poultry eggs. An adult quail weights around 150 to 200 grams. The eggs weigh between 7 to 15 grams. A healthy quail can give up to 300 eggs every year.

Notably, increased health consciousness amongst meat consumers has bolstered the consumption of white meat with chickens, fish and quail offering the majority share. Mukti Fresh is supporting her by selling the Quails birds. Since the demand for Quail meat is high in urban areas, its meat is mainly sold in Kolkata.

Observing her success, 4-5 small farmers have shown their interest in farming Quail birds. They have taken 8-10 birds at their home for breeding.