Raising Gamebirds > General Discussion

feed recipe for quail

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casnyder:
Very nice, and thank you for sharing.  That's definitely more breeders that I've ever worked with, regardless of species.

You feed the pheasants the same thing?  I'll save the recipe in case I ever find myself working with a lot more birds.

CA

casnyder:
I've been thinking about this. I priced soy meal and alfalfa meal at the feed store. Surprisingly inexpensive, for the soy meal.

Do you mix any salts or minerals into the feed? What sort of grit, if any, do you provide to the birds? Are they on the ground or on wire?

I'm just looking to make sure I'm not missing something that you might be doing / giving to your birds and not necessarily even realizing it.

Thanks again for being willing to share your experiences.

CA

Fivehollers:
We keep the birds in cages that are about  3 to4 feet off the ground and are 6 foot by 20 feet long we have 2 rows of electric fencing because of the critters around here who like to eat quail as much as we do. We have the breeding/hospital area which is a converted chicken coop with the breeding cages which we use right now as a hospital for when the birds do not play well together. All together we have 6 of the large pens and 4 smaller versions.

Every week I give all the birds the opportunity to bathe in a sand/dirt mixture that I put in a kitty litter pan, does them a lot of good and they usually wait at the door of the pens when it is their turn, I have had them land on my hands while I am putting the pan in the cages just so they can get a turn. They eat the sand and that seems to do the trick for them. The last time I gave them a bath we put some powdered mite/parasite stuff in the sand the vet said it would not harm them if they ate it and if they did have any parasites on their skin this would eliminate it. (we have never had any problem with their feathers except for being overly dry from lack of oil in the diet but after reading some of the postings on this site about feathers falling out and all of that I thought prevention might be in order.
I was spraying them down with water in a household squirt bottle, they like their little shower but now it is getting colder so I am not doing that anymore.

That is about it, we are taking out the garden so I will give them as much green food as they can tolerate, they love crabgrass and chickweed along with carrots, broccoli, all types of leaf lettuce. I have not thought of giving them crickets but I might try it just to see what they do with the little critters, we gave them nightcrawlers once and thought they were going to kill each other over them, did not do that one again.  :shock:

The feed we get from the elevator lasts us about a month and a half to two months, as I said before this weekend we are butchering another 20 25 birds so the food should last longer than that. They are eating everything, ALL GONE,  it is seldom that that happens but I think it is going to be a cold winter.

The birds we let go this summer have returned, they are eating around the cages and sleeping behind the breeding house, they leave for short periods during the day but I think they feel safe and of course dont' have to forage for food. We have not determined if this is a good or bad thing yet but they are beautiful, LARGE, bobwhites, healthy and in groups of 7 or 8 birds (we let about 50 go)

anyway...this is a constant learning process and what works for us might not work for everybody, it is the most interesting hobby we have ever participated in (sometimes frustrating) and I would be sad if someone were to tell me we could not do this anymore or if somone were to regulate us out of the hobby, (we are not ready to become commercial yet and I don't really think that is something we want to do) but governing bodies, and tree huggers could put a hurt on the hobby, with election time coming up it is important for all of us in this business to pay attention to what folks are doing to regulatem or potentially stop us from breeding, raising, selling, eating and hunting these wonderful birds, for that matter deer, rabbits, coyotes, etc...all could fall under the hatchet of legislation.

Enough of that crap, be proactive and take care of your own.

Lori  :D

casnyder:
Thanks once again.

I've read elsewhere  information from bluebird enthusiasts who raise mealworms by the thousands to feed to wild bluebirds.  It strikes me as a potentially interesting addition to a quail's diet.

The mealworms can be raised easily on the same things that your quail are eating.  A quart of your feed mix should sustain a healthy population of mealworms for a long, long time.  The mealworms pretty much need a carbohydrate source of some sort, and produce most of the vitamins their own bodies need.  It could help keep the diet balanced to include them.

Thanks,
CA

Fivehollers:
I have read about mealworms, I think somewhere on this site, and the hubby has tried them with great success and we use them for ice fishing also, I did not know we could keep them in a bucket of feed tho, we are raising nightcrawlers for fishing in a styrofoam container, I hate to spend money on something you get from the ground. Anyway, I will inform him that we can keep them alive like that and see what he says. We did try the crickets and that was great fun but for each one the birds actually caught and ate 20 jumped away so... :lol:

Do you know the amount of protein in a mealworm?

Lori

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