I was on a home-agriculture kick, and quail are the only animals small and quiet enough to keep indoors while producing a reasonable amount of food (eggs and meat). I wanted them partly as a project and partly as a way to avoid factory-farmed food, since I could make sure they had a reasonably good life. I built them a pen and ordered eggs online, and my husband built an incubator with a styrofoam cooler, light bulb, and thermostat. Our hatch rates were pretty bad, and most of our hatchlings turned out to be boys. Boys don't lay eggs, but they do crow. We ate the boys. The girls died in various ways. We only ever got a few dozen eggs.