top of page
Education & Training
Education & Training
This section is dedicated to the heart of our mission — sharing knowledge, teaching skills, and inspiring growth. Explore lessons, guides, and hands-on insights designed to help you master sustainable Coturnix quail farming and keep Launching Sustainability every step of the way.
Education Pt.29: The First 72 Hours After Hatch: What Matters Most
If you followed our hatch window schedule (set day → lockdown at Day 14 → hatch Days 17–18), you should be seeing your first Coturnix chicks this week or next.
Zero G Quail Farms
3 days ago4 min read
Education Pt.28: Understanding Quail Behavior: What's normal, what's not.
Coturnix quail are honest birds. When something is off, they usually tell you—fast. The trick is learning the difference between normal quail behavior (busy, pecky, skittish, routine-driven) and red-flag behavior that signals stress, nutritional gaps, or a system problem.
Zero G Quail Farms
5 days ago4 min read
Education Pt.27: Quail or the Egg: Choosing Your Starting Point
Should you begin with live birds or hatching eggs? Here’s the Zero G take. Spring production is around the corner, and a lot of you are deciding where to start.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 194 min read
Education Pt.26: Setting Up Your First Brooder: A Calm, Simple Review
Your first brooder can be as simple or as fancy as you want—just don’t build something that overwhelms you to make or maintain.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 163 min read
Education Pt.25: Valentine’s Weekend: 5 Things You Can Build (for your covey and your significant other)
Perfect excuse to grab coffee, crank a playlist, and finally tackle those “I’ll get to it” projects—together. Two sets of hands beats one every time.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 123 min read
Quail Oops Files: A Respectful Look at Genetic Oddities
This isn’t a freak show. It’s a respect-first, learn-first guide to help keepers recognize outliers quickly, care well, and make better breeding decisions.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 106 min read
Education Pt.24:Budget Coturnix Quail Farming
Mission Brief: Less Shiny, More Steady
You don’t need a boutique barn or hundreds of acres to raise great Coturnix.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 84 min read
Education Pt.21: Incubation 101: Timing, Temp, and Humidity — Quick Review
This is your fast recap of the incubation fundamentals we keep circling back to across our recent posts: “Choosing the Right Incubator for Your Goals,” “Troubleshooting Failed Hatches,” “Myth of ‘Shrink-Wrapped’ Chicks,” “Holiday Hatchers,” “Starting a Breeding Program: The Zero G Way,” and “It’s the New Year: Hatching Your Breeders’ First Eggs.”
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 213 min read
Education Pt.20: Choosing the Right Incubator for Your Goals
Before you shop, decide how many eggs you want to set per week, whether you’ll stagger sets, and how much time/space you can devote to calibration and cleanup.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 203 min read
Education Pt.19: Troubleshooting Failed Hatches in Coturnix Quail
A “failed hatch” is rarely one culprit—it’s a chain.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 154 min read
Education Pt.18: What your quail colors really mean, and what it means for your farm. Preview for genetics class offerings.
Here’s the most important takeaway up front: plumage color has nothing to do with whether a Coturnix is “jumbo” or what size eggs it lays.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 113 min read
To turn or to not turn.........
The incubation of coturnix quail eggs has long been a subject of interest among aviculturists and hobbyists alike.
Guidroz Family Farm
Jan 112 min read
Education Pt.17: Review of Lighting 101: Designing Efficient Quail Housing Power & Light Systems
In our earlier post we covered the essentials: quail lay most steadily with about 14–16 hours of total day length (sun + supplemental light), and light only needs to be bright enough to read at quail height—not stadium-bright.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 74 min read
Education Pt. 16: It’s the New Year: Hatching Your Breeders’ First Eggs—and What to Look For
New year, clean slate. Your first hatch isn’t a one-off—it’s the first checkpoint of your breeding program. If you missed our guide, start with “Starting a Breeding Program: The Zero G Way.” This hatch is where your written SOP (your own Standard of Perfection) meets reality: health and body composition before color, production traits measured on a schedule, and records you’ll actually use.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 14 min read
Education Pt. 15: Starting a Breeding Program: The Zero G Way
A breeding program can be as simple or as complex as you want—what matters is intent. When you choose characteristics that you value and then track those choices across generations, you’re breeding with a purpose.
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 27, 20254 min read
Zero G Community Project #1: Hatching in Thin Air: Join the Elevation Project
If you’ve ever wondered why the same incubator can perform totally differently at sea level vs Colorado elevation, lets alone one elevation to another… you’re exactly the kind of person we’d love inside our Elevation Project.
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 26, 20252 min read
Education Pt. 14: Myth of “Shrink-Wrapped” Chicks — Truth or Busted?
Backyard hatchers often warn that opening the incubator during hatch “shrinks” membranes around chicks so they can’t turn and zip.
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 22, 20254 min read
Education Pt. 13: DIY Quail Treats & Forage Mixes: Coturnix-safe ideas that won’t crash your nutrition plan
Treats are fun, foraging is healthy, and Coturnix quail love both, but your base ration still builds and flies the plane.
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 16, 20253 min read
Education Pt.12: The Launch Mindset: Setting Your Farm Goals for the New Year
The best advice we can give heading into a new year is simple: grow slowly and deliberately......
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 12, 20253 min read
Why Winter Hatching is a Gift That Keeps Giving
Incubating Coturnix quail over the holidays can be a fantastic gift and a smart production play. For the right person, a holiday hatch means chicks grow out through late winter and are sorted, settled, and laying by spring, perfect timing for garden season and farmers’ market planning.
Zero G Quail Farms
Dec 9, 20255 min read
Help Us Improve the Mission
We’d love to hear from you — and it doesn’t have to be a big formal review. If you’ve made a purchase, taken a class, or even just explored the site, your feedback helps us fine-tune the Zero G experience and keep improving what we build next. Tell us what you loved, what you’d like to see added, or where we can make things smoother — every note helps us support the community better.
Tristi and Brent Buchanan
Owners of Zero G Quail Farms, Quail Education & Compliance, Business insight, Behind the Scenes, Colorado Quail Techniques.
Guest Blog Writer: Aaron Guidroz
Owner Guidroz Family Farm, Quail Education, Business insight, sustainability practices, homestead insight and pratices.
Guest Blog Writer: Kelli Knecht
Owner Feathered Knechitons, small space sustainability, Quail information, Arts & Crafts
Guest Blog Writer: Homestead Matters
Owners Caiti and Dom, who live on a small suburban property in Western Oregon. "Basic 1850's housewife stuff, homestyle cooking, homeopathic remedies, and homesteading and gardening in small spaces."
bottom of page