Six hens is the classic starter covey: a dozen-plus eggs a week, a small footprint, and enough birds to be a proper flock. Skip the male entirely unless you're hatching.
Start with what you actually want out of the birds, because the arithmetic runs backwards from there.
If the answer is eggs — it usually is — the working numbers: a healthy Coturnix hen in lay averages five to six eggs a week, with 200–300 a year the commonly cited annual pace. Divide your household's weekly appetite by five and you have your hen count; six hens run 30-plus eggs a week in season. Remember the conversion: four-ish quail eggs stand in for one chicken egg, so "a dozen quail eggs" is breakfast-for-two, not a week of baking.
We'd start with six hens, plus one more because quail have not read this page. Production dips with molt, season, and age; the spare hen is your margin, and the space cost of one extra quail is roughly one lunchbox.
Do you need a male? No, and mostly you don't want one. Hens lay identically with or without him; his contributions are fertile eggs, a crow, and drama. Add males only when you're ready to hatch, at the standard ratio of one per three to five hens. Never house surplus males together with hens in one small covey; that's how you get bald, harassed hens and a lesson in flock dynamics.
The floor: quail are covey animals; a lone quail is an anxious quail. Three is the humane minimum, six is where flock behavior gets properly charming.
The ceiling: whatever your space supports. At roughly a square foot per bird, most people's constraint is enthusiasm, not real estate. The classic failure mode isn't starting too big; it's the incubator making the decision for you next spring. ("Quail math" is the community's term. You'll see.)
FAQ
Can I keep just two?
Two survive; three-plus thrive. If two is the hard limit, make them two hens.
How many for meat?
Different math: batch-raised, harvested around maturity. The meat hub covers it; many keepers run a laying covey plus periodic meat batches from their own hatches.
Will six hens really out-lay my needs?
At peak, six hens ≈ 30+ eggs a week. If that's oversupply, pickled quail eggs exist for a reason.