Our Work
Zero G Quail Farms officially launched as a business in 2024. It started with a conversation between the wife and myself and one of those “I’m ordering these…Yeah sure you are” type of moments starting out with 8 birds hatching several years ago and somehow making it to adult hood. This hobby quickly evolved into a business where we keep almost 300 birds (breeding programs, hatching and eating egg sales) in addition to the 500-1000 in various stages of growth. We now provide hatching eggs, eating egga, live birds, and meat for feeder and human sales to those here in Colorado. Whether you’re a homesteader, a hobbyist, or a small scale starting farm we are here to assist you with your future.
Overall, we realized how much we love these little birds, minus the poop (and boy do they poop). This passion for these birds is deeply rooted in their ability to offer both sustainability and therapeutic value. By raising quail, you gain the ability to produce your own eggs, and meat which is essential for self-reliance. For many veterans, including myself, they give us a daily task that has to be done and they give us something to maintain focus on (develop “better” birds than the current and previous generations, more on this later) and therefore the caring for the quail becomes more than just a responsibility; it’s a path to healing. Many veterans have and find comfort in this process, creating a connection with the land and their community that can be deeply rewarding. Especially during this last egg shortage the need for self-sufficiency and community connection was highlighted, and we were proud to only be able to sell our eggs, but we were also able to provide free eggs to those that were in need, all while still having enough to cover our needs. Being able to accomplish that type of support not only strengthens the person receiving them, but also supports the community as a whole. We never once this past year have had to say, “Hey we need to go buy eggs” or have the pressure that shortages can cause. They have also provided us meat along the entire journey. We know if the situation arises we have weeks if not months’ worth of our own food supply. This shortcoming was obvious for a lot of people that I saw during my time in Haiti. Our mission includes providing veterans with a therapeutic pathway into farming, which can offer a sense of purpose and community connection. This is the key reason we are proud to be with the Farmers Veteran Coalition is to expand that network of support.
Why Coturnix Quail
Coturnix quail are an ideal choice for many individuals with limited space or experience. We have customers who keep them in high rise apartments to massive farms at this point. These resilient birds can offer a constant supply of eggs and meat, with the complete cycle from egg to adult being completed in 13 weeks. I’ve felt this fact is super important to me as a Veteran as it allows me to have tangible results in a short time period. You feel accomplished in the fact that was an egg is now a perfectly prepared bird on your plate, or the plate of someone in your community, or that egg is a hen now producing an egg a day. This not only keeps you engaged but also rewarded for completing that task, but also excited to achieve that for each individual bird you raise. Being part of Colorado Proud, and Home Grown by Heroes fits as we are committed to locally grown and providing products to continue to strengthen our local community.
Our Mission
01
Education
Education is another key aspect for us, not only the value of quail themselves for sustainability but also the valuable skills that are gained with maintaining quail. Many people have never seen where their meat comes from. Quail are an easy way to demonstrate and pass on the knowledge and skill of processing your own food that you have raised.
This also carries over into the daily tasks of keeping quail, the composting and waste disposal, basic care of animals, and for construction and planning the housing for your quail as well. Our goal is to educate and demonstrate to people that have never had to use a saw and tape measure to construct anything, let alone used a pair of hog nose pliers, too create safe and effective habitats and produce what they need. The huge scope of items that can be learned from keeping quail is so high that you can use it in your own quest to continue to gain knowledge through your life, a value many of us hold. Quail will also remind you of the simple rules of providing shelter, food and water as the keys to not only keeping quail but also in survival. We want to empower everyone to take ownership of their food sources and pass those skills onto future generations.
02
"The Better Quail"
The genetic diversity of Coturnix quail offer an almost “gotta catch them all” mentality as there are just SO many color variations available allowing endless possibilities for breeding projects. This has led us to take the skills and knowledge from the Arabian horse world and bring them into Coturnix quail, however you don’t even need that knowledge as you can just play with the colors and see in a fairly short time what the outcomes are.
While aesthetics are an exciting part of the process, our primary focus is on improving the birds composition, including its health, shape, weight, and egg production. Even though the colors are great if the bird doesn’t meet our composition standards or isn’t a healthy bird, the colors don’t matter and that bird isn’t bred here. We hope that our association with the American Coturnix Breeders Association can help push the goal of creating a “better” bird in composition and even explore the vast genetic diversity that can be found.
03
Health over Astetics
We have several projects that we have been working on in the goal of developing an even “better” bird, but it will be a slow and steady mission that will never end. We are picky about what we are wanting to achieve with the composition portion of the bird before we even begin to chase and refine color variations. If the shape is great and the weight is high, but the birds are unhealthy and or have health factors, then it isn’t a good bird, this creates a gentle balance to make the bird better.
The same thing occurs chasing the colors and placing that as a priority, it can cause weakening of other factors to the composition of the bird, so the colors must take a back seat sometimes. We are proud of the quality of our birds, which have been shown in several events and have managed to win not only the quail class themselves BUT also the overall gamebird categories at shows (where like the horses I grew up showing, the entire bird is taken into consideration). We are happy with this mission of the business as the number of people commenting what we consider “2nds” as being great and amazing birds is extremely high (to the point many have ended up with reprieve sentences at their new homes). Being picky on what birds are in our breeding program allows us to provide healthy quail for human consumption as well as for falconry and reptile owners, a huge advantage for our customers. Our birds are used to provide a reliable and sustainable food source to be used by individuals and organizations alike, further highlighting the versatility of quail.
04
Never Ending Mission
We are incredibly grateful for the progress we’ve made over the past couple years with these little guys. We are looking forward to many more years assisting and helping people get into quail, and be successful with them. We want to continue to push the education and the knowledge that we have gained and allow others to see how rewarding these bird can be, especially in our veteran community. Our continued work is driven by a passion for both quail and the people we serve. We look forward to displaying that passion to more customers in the coming year, sharing all that we have learned, and helping expand our reach within the veteran community to transfer that passion and new sense of mission and connection to them.
We are anxious and eager to further our involvement and our participation in the ACBA, as we improve the quality of our birds and help expand that organizations reach. We can’t wait to share our passion on both fronts and bring both of these worlds together.
Projects Page Launches!
Discover what’s next inside our Members-Only Projects — where innovation, education, and Coturnix quail come together to push sustainability higher! Get early access to new experiments, ideas, and releases before anyone else. Join us and help keep Launching Sustainability to new heights!
