Food question

[SandraMort]

Things are finally falling into place. I found dog crates to use for pens, I've got somebody local who can sell & incubate eggs for me, I've got a local source of feed and the woman at the recycling center wants to raise quail with me, so we're going to scour the place for supplies to set up their homes for minimal cash outlay.

I was talking to the local breeder and she said that the birds make a huge mess with their food, billing it out all over the place and wasting it. My question is whether there's any reason i can't take some home rendered suet or lard and make suet blocks with their high protein game bird feed to hold it in one of those cages and prevent it from being dumped?

Thanks,
Sandra

 

[joe125]

Yes! Coturnix will waste food from hoppers, like no ones business. This is why you need to put the feed in flat feeders, and service them either daily, or every 2 days. You can't really put a 2-3+ day supply of feed in a hopper and expect a feed waster to suddenly (STOP WASTING FEED)!

It is in their nature. They are crazy fast growers, brooder friendly, but they waste feed. Unless you get a handle on it.

 

[SandraMort]

OK, I get that, but that's not what I asked. I'm asking if the birds are able to eat off of a *solid* brick of food held together with suet, since they wouldn't be able to flip it all over the cage the way they can with loose feed. Would it be too high in fat?

 

[JJMR794]

Quote:
YES

 

[xchairity_casex]

yes suet would indeed be too high of a fat content especielly if they are getting this much fat every single day its fine for wild birds since this is not there main diet. birds are messy its going to happen im afraid.

 

[joe125]

Yes

 

[Hoppelchen]

Here is a free, no waste, no dust quail 2-3 day feeder that feeds 8 birds simultaneously:

Take a 2l pop bottle and a Dremel (or other cheap tool, mine is a 'Draper' and cost £20). You can do it with an Exacto knife but the automatic tool is far superior here.

Cut the top off at the neck, as this just wastes space in the cage.

Cut 2 long rectangles on the side about 2cm high and as wide as you can, leaving a strip in the middle so the bottle retains stability.

Now take a metal clothes hanger, one of those ugly ones made from hardened wire. Pull it at the top and bottom into an 0 shape, now bend it round into an S shape so that the bottle sits sideways smoothly in it, then bend the wire as you need it to fit into your cage, this happily hooks where ever you put it.

Use gaffa (duct) tape to cover the open top and to tape the bottle to the holder front and bottom, so that it does not slip.

I initially made those to avoid my teenage quails making a huge mess indoors with their feeder dust and they are now 'housetrained'.

 

[jenjscott]

hoppelchen, any way you can post a picture of that?

 

[Hoppelchen]

Quote:
I made a new topic: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=485922