No Waste Quail Feeder

Date sort Score sort
capobeach

capobeach

Hatching
6 Years
Aug 24, 2013
4
3
9

My quails were wasting so much feed I had to come up with something. I saw the shoe-box type, but I wanted something that would hold more feed an not take up too much space horizontally in the coop. I used a Costco pretzel barrel and PVC pipe. I've published an Instructable here http://www.instructables.com/id/No-Waste-Quail-Feeder/
Four or Six can feed at a time, depending on how many holes you make. It's working out quite well, and I just thought I'd share my design.
 
Wow that's a brilliant idea.
thumbsup.gif

My quail are also considerably wasteful with their feed.
At least now I know of an affordable way to improve. Thanks!
 
Thanks! The one other benefit I didn't mention is that the food stays free of droppings as well, which is a plus. The other feeders I've used they manage to stand on top and get poop into the food, which I imagine is not good for their health.
 
The hopper is like a sleeve attached between the top opening and the bottom of the barrel.
It would have been better if I could have found something a bit wider so that it fit snugly in the mouth of the barrel.
As you can see from the first picture below, there is about a 1/2 inch gap between them at the top, but it works fine.
It is glued to the bottom of the barrel so it does not move. A 2-liter soda bottle inverted might actually work also instead of the ABS pipe.

I had to experiment a bit with the holes at the bottom of the sleeve. At first they were a bit too shallow and not enough feed was coming out.
The quail could still reach in and peck at the base to get feed, but I wanted it more free flowing so that they didn't have to try too hard once their head was through the hole.

View from the top:




Hope this helps!
 
Last edited:
Very nice! I have a disposable food storage container that i cut holes in. It works with my 1 quail after I screwed the base to a board . Otherwise it was too light and kept getting tipped over. Now I find almost no wastage.

I like the inner chute for more storage of food. How big are the inner diameters of the pipe sections?
 
Very cool idea, thank you for sharing. I've been noticing how much food gets wasted so I'm going to be putting your idea to good use. Thank you again.
smile.png
 
Oreo quail said:
Very nice! I have a disposable food storage container that i cut holes in. It works with my 1 quail after I screwed the base to a board . Otherwise it was too light and kept getting tipped over. Now I find almost no wastage.

I like the inner chute for more storage of food. How big are the inner diameters of the pipe sections?
Click to expand...
I initially just cut holes, but the plastic was a bit sharp and I was worried about the quail injuring themselves or damaging the feathers on their necks. The little collars of pvc are smooth and add a bit of a lip to help keep the food in the bin.

The tube for the feed has an interior dimension of 4".
For the ports the quail stick their heads through, I actually tried 3 different dimensions.
First I used 1 1/2" pvc, but it was a bit large. The quail were able to still pull food through the hole as they were eating.
I went down to 1" pvc next, but it was a bit small. They would stick their heads through but it seemed tight and they didn't like it.
1 1/4" ended up being perfect. In the video I posted on the instructable linked above, you can see the quail have no issues with the size of the hole and freely use the feeder.
 

Similar threads

speng5
Feeder/Waterer question?
Replies
4
Views
149
Nabiki
Nabiki
bridgetchicken
Quail feeder hole size?
Replies
4
Views
778
Nabiki
Nabiki
F
Quail feeder
Replies
2
Views
483
Soulsinabottle
S
B
DIY Coop— Wasted hutch space?
Replies
2
Views
477
Huntmaster
Huntmaster
SmithsCoop41
Fair Price for Bobwhite Quail Eggs for Hatching & Eating
2
Replies
13
Views
916
007Sean
007Sean

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom