QuailBreeder — an app for quail farms

QuailBreeder is an app for people who hatch, raise and sell quail. I wrote it for my own farm: first for the computer, then for the phone. It follows a batch from setting the eggs to the sale, and you don't have to copy notes from paper into the computer in the evening.

In short:

  • 🐣 Written by a programmer who kept quail himself
  • ⚙️ Tracks batches, dates and survival rate
  • 📱 Works on your phone — you can record right on the farm

How QuailBreeder came about

In 2012 I moved from a city of 3 million people (Kyiv, Ukraine) to a village. I wasn't ready for country life: every day something urgent came up, and in the first year I was always behind.

I started keeping quail for meat in the yard. Two years later I was producing about 50 kg of meat a week. That meant 14–15 batches at the same time and more than 3,000 birds at different stages: eggs in the incubator, chicks in the brooder, older birds in the cages. Customers kept asking when the next delivery would be. I wrote all of it down on paper, and at some point I lost track. A mistake in the notes later became a mistake in incubation.

I'm a programmer by training, so I wrote a program to keep the records. It only ran on the computer: I still walked around the farm with paper and copied the notes into the computer in the evening. That was double work. That's when I got serious about the app: I made the next version for the phone and added what a farm needs — the survival rate, losses in transport, batch dates.

QuailBreeder exists because mistakes in my notes cost me eggs, and copying them cost me time. It isn't a big accounting system; it's a program built on the experience of my own farm. If you keep quail for meat or for eggs, you can keep all your records in it, and you don't need any special knowledge for that.

About the author

Serhii Karavansky is a programmer. He kept a quail farm and wrote this app for it.

The app in short:

  • • The first version was a program for Windows.
  • • The next version was made for iPhone.
  • • The name QuailBreeder says what its users do: they breed quail.

What QuailBreeder gives you

Saves time

A note on the spot takes a few seconds; there is nothing to copy over in the evening.

Batch tracking

Plan and track several batches at once: for each one you see the day of incubation and how many chicks hatched.

Works on your phone

Made for the phone, because you make your notes on the farm, not later at the computer.

From egg to sale: how QuailBreeder works

Most farm programs keep track of either the birds or the money. QuailBreeder does both: every bird you sell was once an egg in a tray, and what it brings in depends on the temperature, the feed and the timing in the weeks before the sale. That is why the app follows the batch as a whole, from setting to sale:

  1. 1. Incubation

    A batch starts with setting the eggs in the incubator. You enter your incubators and tray capacities once; after that the app counts the days itself and reminds you to transfer the eggs to the hatcher. So you won't miss the transfer day and lose part of the hatch because of it.

  2. 2. Hatch day

    On hatch day you record how many chicks actually hatched. The difference between the eggs set and the chicks hatched is the first figure that shows how the batch went. QuailBreeder keeps it for every batch, so later you can compare incubators, seasons and parent flocks.

  3. 3. Brooder

    The chicks move to a brooder, and its capacity is also recorded in the app. You record early losses where they happened, and they show where the cause is: in the parent flock, in the incubation or in the heating.

  4. 4. Growing and feeding

    While the birds grow, you record which cage they are in and when they were transferred to feeding.

  5. 5. Sale

    Birds and eggs leave the farm as goods. The whole chain is recorded, so any sale can be traced back to a specific batch — through feeding, brooding and incubation.

The main figure is the survival rate. From these records you can work it out for each stage and for the whole cycle: how many of the eggs set became live birds ready for sale. If the survival rate has dropped, the stages show where to look for the cause; if it has risen, they show what you did right.

The principle is simple: every event is recorded once, where it happened, and the app does the counting.

QuailBreeder on iPhone

QuailBreeder is an iPhone app, because you make your notes on the farm, not at a desk. You often record the hatch with wet hands and on the move, so the app has large buttons, short steps and an undo button for a wrong tap.

Notifications and, if you like, calendar entries remind you of transfer and hatch days. Download the app from the App Store, enter your equipment once, and you can set your first batch.

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Questions about the app: the developer answers

If you have a question about incubation calculations, setting up your equipment or your subscription, write to support. The developer knows both the program and the birds.

A reply is guaranteed

On the free plan and on subscription

How it works

1

Ticket

Describe your question in your account

2

Email

You get an email when there is a reply

3

Solution

The thread continues until the question is solved

Why a ticket and not an email

Talk to the developer

You write to the author of the app, not to an operator

Doesn't get lost in spam

The ticket is kept on the site, not in a mailbox

Your ideas in the app

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