Keeping Quail

Quail are the quiet overachievers of the British back garden. They take up barely any room, they start laying eggs from around six weeks old, and a small covey will happily live in a corner where you could never fit a flock of hens. For anyone with a modest garden and an appetite for eggs, they are one of the easiest ways into keeping your own birds.

This is our home for everything quail: how to house them, what to feed them, the welfare and registration rules that apply in the UK, and how they stack up against chickens. Start with the beginner's guide below, and if you are weighing up your first birds it is worth reading alongside our [chicken-keeping guides](/keep/chickens) too.