I've had 20 years expirience with pen raised quail in do training. They are hit or miss (no pun intended). Many a time I've been to a field trial or bought birds and they come out of a releaser and just flutter a bit. Pen raised birds do not explode anything like wild ones. The secret seems to be raising them from a young age in a large "flight" pen and minimizing imprinting. I wouldn't chance using quail. Around here we get barn pigeons from the Amish communities. We have to buy them 200 at time for dog training but using them up over the summer is not hard to do and they keep very easily. We pay 1.50 ea for them and buy 'em 200-300 at a time.
