How much feed to order?

[GansWIQuail]

I am going to be incubating 100 northern bobwhite quail eggs later this week and eventually housing them in a phantom kennel quail recall house which can hold about 50 quail. It is my first go at raising quail from the start so I don't think I will be super successful but my hopes are high.

Anyways I need to get some food on order and a local feed store can mix me a 28% game bird starter mix for 17.50 for 50#. I just don't know how much I should order to get me started. I don't want to have a ton of it sitting around. But it can take some time to get it made so I need some around. I was thinking of getting 200#...? How much feed am I going to go through in a month?


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[dc3085]

You can feed them starter for the first 8 weeks. If you aren't using the birds for shooting purposes, you can continue to feed the starter until you run out of it (assuming you had extra). If you are flight conditioning for shooting you need to switch to 19% around 7-8 weeks so they don't gain too much weight on you.

I think 200# will leave you with a little bit extra, if you use feeders that keep waste down. If they are able to waste food they will, so consider that a good portion of the food is going to be wasted. They have an instinct to scratch at their food and they toss it out with their beaks as they eat.

To subvert food waste get several half inch thick block of some type. As the bird get taller add blocks under the feeder so they have to reach a little to get at the feed.

When they are full grown your feeder will look sort of like this.



Worst case scenario if you have a bunch left you can mix the higher protein stuff you have left in to the first couple weeks of flight conditioner.

 

[GansWIQuail]

Ok thanks for the advice I wouldn't have ever know to switch the food for flight conditioning. I plan to use a similar feeder but modified so it can hold more feed


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[dc3085]

Just cut the top off the feeder and then you can slide a piece of 3" ABS pipe over to make it hold as much as you want. just but a cap for the ABS to cover the top.