Hatching, Raising and Breeding
Hatching
The broody nature of Coturnix quail has been completely bred out of them. Most hens will lay an egg where she is at the moment, regardless of the time of day, without giving it a second thought. If you want to hatch out your own eggs you will need an incubator or an extremely tiny bantam chicken hen.
Being smaller, quail eggs are more prone to cracking than a chicken's. By collecting the eggs a few times a day you can minimize the number of broken and dirty eggs found in the cage. This will also keep the eggs from overheating in the summer or getting too cold in the winter, both of which can ruin your hatch rate.
After you have gathered your eggs, keep them in a cool place with high humidity: anywhere from 55-65 F and around 70% humidity is ideal. Turn them once a day to keep the yolk from settling at the bottom and sticking to the shell. Once you have gathered enough eggs (no more than a week's worth: after the first seven days of holding the hatch rate suffers), place them all in the incubator together with the tips pointing downward and the air bubble (which can be seen if you shine a light through the shell), pointing to the sky. Any dirty eggs should be washed in water warmer than the egg and can be hatched, but are probably better to just put in the fridge for eating.
Jumbo quail hatch at around 16-17 days, but may go as long as 19 days. Marking chicks that hatch out later will give you a better idea as to who should be culled later. Unless the late-hatching chicks grow faster or lay better, then they may as well be butchered. With that being said, no one knows exactly why it takes longer for some chicks to hatch that others, so culling the late hatchers may not noticably reduce the occurance. There's no harm in mixing the chicks together if they are only a few days apart in age.
In a still air incubator the temperature should be kept at 101 F with a 60% humidity. Forced air incubators (those with fans installed) should be set for 99.5 F with 60% humidity. Eggs need to be turned at least four times a day. If you plan on hatching a full incubator's worth (usually 120 eggs) then I strongly recommend an egg turner to save time.
On the 15th day stop turning the eggs. At this point the chicks should be getting into position to hatch, which is easier to do if they aren't constantly sliding around. Once they start pipping you can expect them to pop out of their shells like popcorn for the next couple of days. During that time try not to open the incubator up often, since that will reduce the humidity in the incubator and make it harder for the unhatched chicks to break through the shell.
Raising
After your new chicks hatch out, move them to a brooder that has been set at 95 F using a heat lamp with a 100-250 watt bulb. Brooder temperatures can fluxuate, so spare the few dollars it costs to get a thermometer or two set up inside.
In addition to the thermometers, you can see how hot or cold your chicks are by looking at them. If they are all huddled under the heat lamp then they are too cold. If they are as far away from the light as possible, or they are panting with their mouth's open, they are too warm. You want your chicks to be bouncing around inside the brooder all over the place.
Chicks should be fed a 28-30% gamebird crumble. If you can find feed in a powder form use that over the crumble: the powder is easier for the chicks to digest. Make sure the feed is in a container low enough to the ground for them to find the food, and that it is either covered or set up so they cannot get inside.
You can make your own quail feeders out of plastic bottles or milk jugs by cutting out holes large enough for the head. Leave the tops on these feeders or make some sort of lid, otherwise the quail will fly up inside and become trapped.
The water dish MUST have something inside to minimize their contact with the surface, otherwise they will somehow manage to drown themselves (even in a quarter inch of water with plenty of room to crawl back out). The easiest way to keep the chicks from drowning is by putting marbles or rocks inside the dish so they can only drink through the cracks. Drowning is the number one reason chicks die during the first week
Each week the temperature inside the brooder can be reduced by 5 F. Usually by the third or fourth week a heat lamp is no longer necessary so long as the temperature is at least 70 F.
Breeding
By eight weeks old your quail should begin laying eggs. For maximum egg production, keep 16 hours of light on the quail each day. Timers are the easiest way to provide a steady source of light. Don't worry about bugs being drawn to the lights at night - the quail will happily eat any insects they can catch, making it a good idea to keep the lighting low to the cage.
For the best fertility, one male for every two to three females that are between the ages of 2-8 months is the most efficient. After eight months both fertility and egg production tapers off rapidly. At eight months of age, quail are still tender enough to eat.
If you are raising your quail in a colony with multiple males and females together then adding a few extra females shouldn't be an issue. In the end you want to achieve an 85-95%+ fertility rate. If you find you're not hitting that mark then try adding or removing some of the males. Too many males will stress out the hens and lower fertility.
To feather sex the brown and Manchurian Coturnix colors, wait until the chicks are around three weeks old. By that time the males will develop a reddish colored breast; the females will have a speckled breast and are usually somewhat larger. In all varieties the males call to one another while the females remain quiet.
Once the quail are 6-8 weeks old you should be able to vent sex them. In order to vent sex, hold the quail upside down with its vent facing away from you. Gently squeeze and massage the lower stomach, working your way closer to the tail. Males "foam up" while female vents remain clean. This method of sexing is extremely simple and can be mastered after only one or two tries.
Make sure you are providing additional calcium to keep up with egg production. It takes a lot out of a hen to lay an egg as large as her head six times a week. 11% of each egg is its shell, and each egg weighs in at around 8% of the hen's body weight: a lot of calcium goes into its production.