Japanese quail are farmed globally for meat and eggs, with welfare standards often lagging behind those for chickens.
Quail welfare is largely invisible to consumers and policy makers, despite the scale of production. Their small size and rapid production cycle do not diminish their capacity for suffering — quail show clear stress responses to handling, confinement, and environmental deprivation. Barren cage environments deny all natural behaviour expression. Cannibalism in deprived populations is severe enough to be a significant welfare problem requiring painful surgical intervention. Welfare-positive quail production requires provision of loose substrate for dust bathing, space for wing stretching and movement, and group sizes that allow normal social behaviour without competitive stress.