Kir's quest was designed to be a long-term game, and is geared more toward the older, more established players on the site [meaning they have more rare creatu to hand in, meaning the numbers of those creatu will decrease, which is good!].
It is supposed to be a difficult quest that takes a long time, so yes, if you wanted to go the completely free route, you'd have to wait until Spring to try and hatch the Kurrabi.
Part of the purpose of the game is to remove pets from play so that we are not flooded with so many pets that they are worthless. Before the introduction of the quest, it was a struggle to sell an albino pet for 10M. Now they go for 20M and more easily! Great for the game economy, and great for the ranchers as well.