how to stop food waste?

[CARS]

I use rabbit feeders with duct tape over half of the opening.
It works well for most quail. Some of those little buggers are weird eaters. Tossing their head frantically to get a bite of food.

 

[AHappychick]

Quote:
wait which kind do you have? if it is the white one how did you set up the poultry netting? or do you mean the galvanized one like in my pic with out the wire added? They are such crafty messy little buggers I would not be surprised iof they figured out a way to waste again. I dont know why they prefer to spill it all and then go hungry for hours until I realize it and refill.

 

[ken429h]

The feeder mods. are very ingenious. I have a different take on why quail waste food.
I think it's a behavioral thing that is going on there.
Per my observations and tests I have come to the following conclusions, and applied remedies that follow. They work for me, but your results may vary.

Hopper type feeders encourage birds to waste food, especially clear type feeders. I think it has something to do with the movement of the food, and the seemingly endless supply of food. Like a kid at a gumball machine that requires no money. Exactly how long would it take for every gum ball to be under the wire and the kid wanting a refill? (Assuming we raised our kids on wire and they only had natural instinct, and an IQ of -5 to fall back on)

The second reason is that they simply want a dust bath.

What works for me is to use a 1-2-3 punch.
#1 Use a trough style feeder. Also called, flip top, slide top feeder.

#2 Provide a dust/sand box. Not to be confused with calcium rich grit supplement.

#3 Provide greens. My preference is kale, collards, cabbage, in that order, but anything in the (brassica oleracea acephala) group is fine. Avoid lettuce! Especially iceberg lettuce. It has the nutritional value of a paste made of one part copy paper and 100 parts water.
Also, do not overfeed any greens. It's more about the fight, not the fill with greens. Over feeding means less of the high protein high priced feed winds up in the birds. It's a moderation thing, that I have yet to perfect.

I have found that #2 and #3 works with a hopper type feeder as well.

Ken

 

[FLWB039]

Great ideas!

 

[QuailKeeper]

i have the white game chick feeder and the galvanized feeder with a mason jar and i use both of them for my adult quail. i put the plastic poultry netting inside the feed troughs on the white one and cut a circular piece and put it in both of my round feeders

 

[jeffmaggie]

This is something that I came up about a month ago to solve my anxiety regarding the epic waste of feed that is "normal" for chicken feeding. I was going through a large feeder every other day. Most of it ended up in the dirt, and the chickens didn't seem too eager to eat it. Rather, they'd act all hungry and trick me into filling the feeder.
So after months of seeing all this waste money fall on the floor and morph into dirt, I came up with this idea of a gravity feeder system. It's not only efficient because everything gets sent back up top, but it's incredibly clean too. Not a spec of feed on the floor. EVERYTHING goes into the collection receptacle.
It works via gravity. Place the source on top of a wire mesh screen floor, that sits over a funnel, which sits over a collection container.
I'm not trying to sell anything and I don't have any plans, just done from my head, but you will get the idea and be able to make your own. Please check out the link to several of my chicken videos on this topic. Thanks, Jeff
I've made 4 video variations so far.
DIY Zero Waste Bulk Gravity Chicken Feeder/Waterer Saves Money $$$

DIY "No-Waste" Gravity Chicken Feeder - SAVES $$$ MONEY

DIY ZERO-WASTE GRAVITY CHICKEN FEEDER!!!

DIY Bulk Gravity Chicken Feeder Recycles All Food - Zero Waste!!!