Easy to raise poultry (besides chickens)

I've been raising poultry since 2009 and through the years I have raised lots of different types of poultry. Some of these worked out really well and others not so much! When choosing other poultry to raise it's important to note how many eggs they will actually lay, because they're not all the same!

For instance most people think that a goose is a lot like a duck. I mean they're not wrong in certain aspects but if you're looking at egg laying, a goose only lays about 30 - 50 eggs each year whereas a duck can lay 300! That's a big difference, especially if you're raising them for eating eggs! 

Related reading: Comparing size and nutrition of different types of poultry eggs! Ducks, chickens, turkeys and more!

Now if you're raising them to hatch those eggs and sell the babies, then many goslings demand a higher price than ducklings so the goose might actually be a better choice.

The button quail experiment

A few years back I decided to raise button quail. It was a fun little experiment in house birds. Unfortunately button quail didn't work out well for us, but they were fun while they were here. They are especially fun if you like 22 egg omelettes! Since they are so small, button quail may not be able to live outside in your region. Here in Pennsylvania where it snows in the winter they would not survive the cold. When I decided to learn how to raise button quail, I knew I would have to keep them indoors.

I didn't set out to raise button quail actually. I had gone to a breeders house to get some silkie chicks. Once there she invited us in the house while her husband went to get the chicks. On the table was a small aquarium with tiny white button quail in it and I asked about these cute little birds. They had just had some babies and she offered me some so I took them home that night. 

I had no idea what I was getting into

Chicken breeds to raise for pretty eggs

When I got my first chickens 10 years ago, I hung out on chicken forums an awful lot. It seemed like everyone in there was obsessed with having a 'pretty egg basket'. Chicken breeds were selected carefully by what color egg they would produce. Blue egg layers and chocolate brown egg layers were the crowd favorites, though green egg layers were favored over the standard brown.

I didn't pick my chicken breeds that way.

I bought whatever they had at the feed store to round out the Marans my husband wanted and the silkies I wanted. I ended up with easter eggers and golden comets because that's all that was left when I got there.

I acquired olive eggers when a Marans breeder sent me extra eggs just to fill the carton. Accidentally, this made for a beautiful range of farm fresh egg colors!

Comparing different types of eggs

An egg is an egg is an egg....or is it? We all know that eggs fresh from the farm or your own backyard dwelling chicken flock are higher in nutrients then store bought eggs. Is that it though? Actually, no. It also depends what kind of egg you're eating.

Did you know that a guinea egg has more than twice the protein as a same sized chicken egg? Or that 5 quail eggs have almost the exact same nutritional content as 1 chicken egg, but are higher in calories? Or that ounce for ounce, duck eggs have more fat than goose eggs? Weird, right? 

I spent a few hours crunching the numbers and I figured out how all the different types of farm fresh eggs, stack up against each other. Why? Well....I find it fascinating. Plus I was bored, but that's irrelevant! The point is, whether you raise chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, turkey or quail their eggs are all sort of the same, but kinda different.