Making our own food, how much of each ingredient should we add for a balanced diet?

[Ital]

I do feed my young quail a 28% protein feed but ALL of my older quail eat 16% layer feed. And by older I mean I switch them over to the layer feed at 6 weeks of age.

I looked at a few studies and the results were varied but 22% seemed to be near the top end of what was generally recommended without being excessive and 18% at the low end. Maybe less is more ? If your quail are foraging for worms and bugs it probably puts your feed around that but I’d be a bit worried about feeding layer to the males. Most of the high protein ingredients I’m using have the full range of amino acids (crickets, cannabis seeds) which seem to be difficult to get enough of so I aimed close to the upper limit.
I’d like to not need any branded nutritional boosters but after reading everyone’s comments on the difficulty of finding the right balance it now seems unlikely.
It’ll take me a little while to get the money together for the tests after buying all the other bits but will hopefully soon find out if it’ll work or how to improve it.

 

[Skitdora]

If you want to save money try to plant a perennial fruit tree guild by their yard. If you keep them caged you should give them human made feed, but if you let them free range they will be even healthier if given the food forest type living conditions. My birds would circle my house eating my 25ft row of seeded Concord grapes, eat spruce tree berries, and cherries for over 5 months. They ate bugs in raked up fall leaves. They ate my weed filled organic yard and my garden. They had their store feed but would leave it to free range. Free ranging is organic feed as long as you grow organic. When it comes to the snow blanketed winter months they can’t free range and they hate eating the store bought feed they want variety. Store bought feed isn’t the gold standard. That comes in from distribution centers spoiled sometimes. Nutrena was recalled several times. I feed producers pride, I think it is cheaper, but I feel great about that after all the times I saw the Nutrena stuff recalled. I believe store feed is very important with medicated feed too, the chick starter. When I first started growing birds, it was before it was trendy and I had to drive an hour to get feed and sometimes they would be out for weeks. I was able to buy small bags of chick starter only online. My birds ate lots of cracked corn as that was all I could get sometimes, driving around buying them anything I could find. I felt real bad for them but my birds during that time lived over a decade and predators have always been my biggest killer. Sometimes you will live through hard times and your animals along with you. Anybody remember that huge pet food recall in 2004? My sisters childhood cat died from it. There were empty shelves in the pet food section for months. Resiliency is something humans need to learn again, and if you can’t be flexible, you will have authoritarian tyrannical nincompoop foot soldiers with delusions of grandeur steal everything you have. Plant some trees. It would heal the planet and stop global warming if we all did by the hardwoods taking the carbon back out of the environment. And plants feed.

 

[Kiki]

I looked at a few studies and the results were varied but 22% seemed to be near the top end of what was generally recommended without being excessive and 18% at the low end. Maybe less is more ? If your quail are foraging for worms and bugs it probably puts your feed around that but I’d be a bit worried about feeding layer to the males. Most of the high protein ingredients I’m using have the full range of amino acids (crickets, cannabis seeds) which seem to be difficult to get enough of so I aimed close to the upper limit.
I’d like to not need any branded nutritional boosters but after reading everyone’s comments on the difficulty of finding the right balance it now seems unlikely.
It’ll take me a little while to get the money together for the tests after buying all the other bits but will hopefully soon find out if it’ll work or how to improve it.

Hey @Ital I am just now. months later, seeing your response. SORRY. You probably already know all of this by now but it's worth repeating:

My birds stay cages and do not get worms or bugs. My males do eat the layer feed. My birds are all healthy and I have zero issues with hatching healthy chicks from my eggs which means my males are not suffering by eating the layer crumble.


@Ital and I are talkin about QUAIL. NOT CHICKENS.

 

[Ital]

Hey @Ital I am just now. months later, seeing your response. SORRY. You probably already know all of this by now but it's worth repeating:

My birds stay cages and do not get worms or bugs. My males do eat the layer feed. My birds are all healthy and I have zero issues with hatching healthy chicks from my eggs which means my males are not suffering by eating the layer crumble.


@Ital and I are talkin about QUAIL. NOT CHICKENS.

hey @Kiki long time no see.. it was calcium overdose I was thinking might be an issue giving layer to males but it takes ages to kill them and doesn’t affect fertility so if you’re rotating them between the incubator and freezer quick enough it probably won’t bother yours.
Been having a nightmare with mine but things are improving and I’m pretty happy with their menu now which has changed loads. I’ll update my thread at some point with all the gory details.
Hope you and your birds are well.

 

[Kiki]

J

hey Kiki long time no see.. it was calcium overdose I was thinking might be an issue giving layer to males but it takes ages to kill them and doesn’t affect fertility so if you’re rotating them between the incubator and freezer quick enough it probably won’t bother yours.
Been having a nightmare with mine but things are improving and I’m pretty happy with their menu now which has changed loads. I’ll update my thread at some point with all the gory details.
Hope you and your birds are well.

I usually keep my breeders around for at least 2 years with no issues.
I'm really glad to hear yours are doing ok!!

 

[Ital]

I usually keep my breeders around for at least 2 years with no issues.
I'm really glad to hear yours are doing ok!!

Not sure how long it takes to cause issues, stormcrow was saying he feeds his layer because it’s cheaper and eats them before they get any problems from it.
I’ve seen other people keeping them longer term complaining about breeder pellets having too much calcium.
I lost some of my new ones recently which was really sad but I reckon I’ve figured out what’s going on and how to fix it.
It’s a massive responsibility this and if you get it wrong they die pretty quick.
Got some more a few days old now so hopefully I’ll get it right this time.

 

[Kiki]

Not sure how long it takes to cause issues, stormcrow was saying he feeds his layer because it’s cheaper and eats them before they get any problems from it.
I’ve seen other people keeping them longer term complaining about breeder pellets having too much calcium.
I lost some of my new ones recently which was really sad but I reckon I’ve figured out what’s going on and how to fix it.
It’s a massive responsibility this and if you get it wrong they die pretty quick.
Got some more a few days old now so hopefully I’ll get it right this time.

Awe man I'm sorry to hear your others died. Mine that are the same age as your others are all laying eggs now.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Not sure how long it takes to cause issues, stormcrow was saying he feeds his layer because it’s cheaper and eats them before they get any problems from it.
I’ve seen other people keeping them longer term complaining about breeder pellets having too much calcium.
I lost some of my new ones recently which was really sad but I reckon I’ve figured out what’s going on and how to fix it.
It’s a massive responsibility this and if you get it wrong they die pretty quick.
Got some more a few days old now so hopefully I’ll get it right this time.

I'm still working kinks out of my processes, but yeah, its working pretty well for me right now. I do have a fertility issue (in my chickens) and there is (scant) research on excess calcium affecting fertility in (chicken) roos, but my clay soils making bacteria bombs of some of my eggs, in spite of washing/bleaching is definitely an issue too - one bad egg and I can basically kiss 1, maybe 2 eggs on either side goodbye as well. Need to give my incubator a once over, too.

Sorry to hear about your birds. Fortune favor your next effort

 

[Kiki]

Not sure how long it takes to cause issues, stormcrow was saying he feeds his layer because it’s cheaper and eats them before they get any problems from it.
I’ve seen other people keeping them longer term complaining about breeder pellets having too much calcium.
I lost some of my new ones recently which was really sad but I reckon I’ve figured out what’s going on and how to fix it.
It’s a massive responsibility this and if you get it wrong they die pretty quick.
Got some more a few days old now so hopefully I’ll get it right this time.

If you were in my neck of the woods or even somewhat near my neck of the woods, I would give you as many eggs as you wanted.

 

[Ital]

Awe man I'm sorry to hear your others died. Mine that are the same age as your others are all laying eggs now.

All the original birds are ok but I brought in some live pol females to live with them and since then all sorts of problems with the new ones, I reckon it hit them first being younger.
Sending off samples this week but I reckon it’s mareks, tumours, paralysis, respiratory problems, horrible. Didn’t realise it was such a big risk bringing live birds in.