Button quail for dog food?

[streetmutt]

As an aspiring permaculturist, I have considered this option, but have tossed it aside due to needing to harvest two cot quails every day at least. That's just not going to work with my setup and how I do things. It would likely be better and more sustainable to feed the dogs eggs every day — but you'd still need a lot of birds for that! (I'd say 20 or so for two dogs, if you are supplementing the eggs with other things).

Right now, my unresearched plan is to use aquaculture to solve my dog feeding issue. We currently have plans for aquaculture for aiding in our duckweed production (going into the quail), but primarily as a source of tilapia for ourselves. I need more research, but I'd like to supplement some of my dogs' protein needs with fish and eggs eventually. Possibly add our sweet potatoes and duckweed into the mix (they already eat raw sweet potatoes once a week). I dunno ... we might just have to come to the realization that dogs are a luxury item and don't pay their way lol

Also, button quail! OMG so freaking cute. Not sure how anyone can harvest them. I can barely let my husband harvest my pesky coturnix roos! (then again, I name them and know their personalities and stuff)

 

[salsan20]

To be honest you wouldnt want to feed your dog the same raw food every day anyway! I alternate from waste from the local butchers (he does a minced tube of things like chicken feet and necks, offal and meat just past its sell by -dogs can almost eat green meat, they are perfectly designed scavangers! However I draw the line if it smells funny), minced chicken, left overs from our meals, cheap meats and fishes on sale etc.

 

[bkvail]

if you think about it - dogs have only been eating kibble for a relatively short time in history - less than 100 years I would bet. Dogs of the past survived on scavenging, on leftovers of all sorts, and I'm sure they ate lots of raw foods as their owners processed meat for their own table.

 

[Sill]

I've fed my dogs raw meat for years and they hunt and eat things they kill themselves. I saw one of my terriers eat three baby sparrows she caught herself yesterday (she weeds out their local gene pool for them every spring and summer). Yes she ate them whole, feathers and all in about 15 seconds. Dogs' digestive systems are designed to take care of bone but the feathers come out the same as they went in...except messier.

It's like a little extra fiber.

Button quail can certainly make good raw food for a small dog, but it might take a few depending on the size of the dog. Cots or bobs would be a better choice for small dogs, maybe chukars for medium sized dogs, but large dogs would do better with chicken, duck or turkey . Now quail eggs make a great treat for dogs and any cracked eggs get tossed to the dogs as a quick treat.

So why not button quail as dog food if you've got extras on hand?

 

[GrandmaBird]

You could use button quail but they are so small that I think it makes more sense to use a larger breed. I got my first buttons from a lady who raised them to use as hunt training for injured and abandoned raptors. I figure I saved those two but she raised many more for the raptors to eat. Owl, hawks and even bald eagles. They also raise mice and rats for the same thing. the circle of life ...

 

[jessifl]

I would like to reopen this topic. I feed my dogs raw and usually reply on whatever is on a must sell now clearance. I have animals but not harvesting enough to support my dogs on my butchering alone. I was thinking about rabbits but that’s too high protein and not enough fat.
I could pretty easily add a quail coop with a good sized breed. Is anyone doing this with quail being the main food source?
It seems possible. My dogs were mainly eating chicken for a long time. I like the idea of getting the full carcass to them as they are intended to be eaten in the wild. I recently read an article about the oldest living wolf on record. She was a zoo wolf or in some kind of sanctuary and lived for 15 years on a chicken a day. I know quail aren’t chickens but pretty similar and faster to produce for me.

 

[hkb]

I currently raise chickens, coturnix quails, and rabbits for meat for both myself and my dogs. I feed them to my dogs whole and the dogs eat the entire thing. I've been wanting to start with button quails, I just haven't sourced any birds or eggs yet. It's really great to be able to raise an animal to exactly the right serving size, then either feed it freshly killed or freeze and store for later. It doesn't have to be their entire diet. My dogs and cats still eat canned and dry food, too, but eating a whole quail is great for their teeth and good enrichment for them, same as giving them a bully stick, but more substantial. I don't recommend you feed your dog all one protein source all the time anyway, so if you're supplementing with a few quails per week but mostly feeding kibble, that's still good for your dog. Even if it's not cheaper as a primary food source, it's still cheaper than store-bought dental chews or bully sticks.

I also find it less work to raise micro-livestock, even if it takes more time to do, because that time is spread out and it's never a massive chore. This is very important for me because I'm disabled. The quails are so easy and pleasant to care for, and I don't process them before feeding them to the dog (just dispatch them, no butchering needed), so I never feel like it's "work", it just fits in with my daily chores. I've also butchered deer and fed the bones and lower-quality cuts to the dogs, and butchering a large animal is a huge ordeal that requires a lot of space. You can cut off a quail's head over your kitchen sink with garden shears. Even a chicken is more complicated than that.

Depending on your setup, you can get more creative in housing them, too. If you think of the available space in your home, maybe you have 100 ft2 you could dedicate to raising birds, but it's not all in one place. Then it's better to have smaller livestock that can be spread out in different places. I have some pretty creative spots on my property for micro-livestock, lol. Altogether, it might be the same bioload as a horse, but it fits into my tiny townhouse and yard because it's spread out. You can also feed day-old chicks of any species to dogs without any need to house them at all. Or you can house them until they weigh exactly 1/2 or 1/4 of your dog's daily intake needs. It's easy to use multiple food sources when everything is stored in increments, and if you feed the animal whole, there's zero processing. It doesn't get much easier than that.

I love my quails, too. The first one I raised was an only-chick from grocery store eggs that imprinted on me and that chick was my best little buddy and my introduction to bird-keeping. I don't consider it a tragedy for a quail to live a good life in a healthy flock, then die by predation without ever having to grow old. That's a good, normal quail life and I feel a lot better about that than I do about kibble. In fact, the more quails you feed to your dogs, the more quails get to live that good, happy life. It's like how Temple Grandin said that she loves cows, and if people didn't eat cows, there wouldn't be cows, so she's happy that people eat cows. I mean, I definitely cried my eyes out the first few quail deaths, but it got easier and I still love the quails.

As a side note, the dogs are still perfectly well-behaved around the birds while they're alive. One is a trained collie who helps me manage the animals on a daily basis, one is obsessed with doting on baby chicks and dutifully protects them from the cats, and another would definitely kill them all if she were younger, but she can't see, hear, or move fast enough to catch even the fattest Cornish giant, lol. All of them will eat a freshly-slaughtered bird with gusto, then go right back to being peaceful to the live birds.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my novel, haha

 

[2 many chickens]

Buttons are too tiny to feed to anything.
Seriously.