feed waste?

[subhanalah]

When my feed gets wet and ferments...even a little, my birds will starve to death before they touch it. How do you make them eat it?

When it gets wet, it spoils and molds, that's why your chickens won't touch it.

food+water in a food safe container and stir it. Let it go for at least three days, stirring once a day .

Sometimes they will look at it like you are trying to poison them at first, but that's just because it's something they aren't familiar with yet.
http://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

 

[Sill]

When my feed gets wet and ferments...even a little, my birds will starve to death before they touch it. How do you make them eat it?

To get my quail to accept fermented feed I added stuff I know they like. Things like finely shredded carrots, pulverized egg shell, yogurt, mashed berries, tomatoes, cut grass, whatever they like. First I sprinkled the extra stuff on top then I started mixing it in the FF. They love it so much now they shovel it in every morning. I have to be careful because they are good a flinging it at me while they are digging in.

 

[subhanalah]

To get my quail to accept fermented feed I added stuff I know they like.  Things like finely shredded carrots, pulverized egg shell, yogurt, mashed berries, tomatoes, cut grass, whatever they like.  First I sprinkled the extra stuff on top then I started mixing it in the FF.  They love it so much now they shovel it in every morning.  I have to be careful because they are good a flinging it at me while they are digging in.

if they were any bigger, I'd be pulling back nubs lol

 

[COsteveo]

I use a combination of tricks I learned from this forum. Firstly, I use the standard mason jar feeder base, but I shove a cardboard toilet paper tube through the hole so that there's only about 1/3" between the end of the tube and the bottom of the feeder base. This keeps the feed level low so the quail have to reach farther and don't have nearly as much to throw around.

That worked well, but I always ended up dumping feed out when refilling the jar. They ate it but also wasted it. When I was refilling twice a day it really started to bother me, so the next step was to build an open-top hopper so I wouldn't have to invert anything to refill. I cut a piece of 4" PVC to the desired length, then used a pair of PVC reducers to go 4" -> 3" and 3" -> 2", which then fit into the feeder base. I can fit nearly a gallon of feed in there, and then top off as needed without having to open the brooder and move things around.

 

[Quail Jailer]

Well, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words so, having to go out to my breeder house and get eggs, I decided to shoot a couple photos.


Just to give an idea of my arrangement, those pens are interchangeable,
the rack to the left is empty at the moment





This is a shot of underneath, click on it and zoom in to see how much feed is on the drop tray, that is a strip of brown paper at front.
those trays were cleaned sunday morning, its now monday evening, I service the feeders at 8 am and 8 pm so that is the total waste from three feed cycles.


Just an overall shot of the pan, like I said for .33 cents you won't beat the results.

 

[luvburds]

Well, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words so, having to go out to my breeder house and get eggs, I decided to shoot a couple photos. Just to give an idea of my arrangement, those pens are interchangeable, the rack to the left is empty at the moment This is a shot of underneath, click on it and zoom in to see how much feed is on the drop tray, that is a strip of brown paper at front. those trays were cleaned sunday morning, its now monday evening, I service the feeders at 8 am and 8 pm so that is the total waste from three feed cycles. Just an overall shot of the pan, like I said for .33 cents you won't beat the results.

My birds are outside on wire, gona try that, thanks for the idea. Tired of raising and feeding mice along with my quail.

 

[pawtraitart]

What has everyone come up with to combat wasted feed? It seems my birds throw more on the ground than they eat, way more.

I don't have any feed waste with my quail. ZERO. I cap the feeders at night so I'm not feeding mice, either. You can make something like this yourself.

 

[tolik]

Minimum waste.

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[tolik]

 

[Dragons4u]

Tolik, are those old aquarium filters you modified?