I need feed for the quail i am getting in about 2 days...

[Chicken-Farmer]

Dumor 24% chick starter is not chicken starter! Its chick starter as in turkey, chuckar, quail and pheasant chick starter. Too much protein can cause extremely large eggs in adult female quail. Too large of eggs cause prolapse. We all want large birds, but not at the expense or health of those birds. I find that the 24% feed is a good compromise between growth and health.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[BackYardQuail]

Dumor 24% chick starter is not chicken starter! Its chick starter as in turkey, chuckar, quail and pheasant chick starter. Too much protein can cause extremely large eggs in adult female quail. Too large of eggs cause prolapse. We all want large birds, but not at the expense or health of those birds. I find that the 24% feed is a good compromise between growth and health.

Chicken-Farmer

I went to a tractor supply store yesterday and all they had was feed that had 24% protein and less... Guess I'm going to have to go with 24%... The gamebird feed was also 24% only difference was that it was 2x as expensive as the one you use.

 

[bush]

Our tractor supply here in Delaware is a purina dealer. They did not have purina startena in stock, so when I asked they where able to order it for me. Purena startena is 30% protein and $21.99 for a 50 lb. bag.

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/dumorreg;-chick-starter-24%-50-lb?cm_vc=-10005

This is the bag of Dumor feed that I buy. I have not had any problems with the feed and my birds eat it fine.
Biggest tip I can give you about your new quail is figure out a less waste feeder system for them. Quail love to whip their feed around when they eat and they will drain an automatic feeder of all it's feed very quickly. One way to stop this is by limiting their head movement inside the feeder. If they can't whip their head around then they can't waste feed. Or make them stretch their necks a little bit to reach the feed, same concept.

This is the feeder system I came up with for my meat birds. It is a combination of a few designs that I saw here on backyard chickens. The coupler fitting limits the amount of feed that is dropped into the feed pan. And because the feed level is lower the birds have to reach in and any feed thrown around just falls back into the pan. My breeding quads reach their heads out of their pen to access their feed troughs. I keep the level low in the trough so that they can't whip the feed out.
Notice how I said "less mess feeder" there is going to be some waste, but it is minor compared to the waste I had when I first started raising quail.


Bush that is the same with my Tractor supply. I used to buy the Startina Gamebird Chow, but stock was not reliable so I switched to the Dumor 24% Gamebird feed and have not looked back. I go through atleast 4 bags a month depending on the amount of chicks I have at the time. Spring and fall are my busy seasons. Summers I don't hatch as many chicks because the heat is so unbearable down here in the south.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[GrandmaBird]

Just wanted to let you know that I bought a $10 blender and use it for chick fed. then I don't even have to wash it out just keep it stored in a zip bag and in the original box. cheap and works well plus you can do more feed at one time then the coffee grinder which was also about $25 in my area.

 

[BackYardQuail]

Just wanted to let you know that I bought a $10 blender and use it for chick fed. then I don't even have to wash it out just keep it stored in a zip bag and in the original box. cheap and works well plus you can do more feed at one time then the coffee grinder which was also about $25 in my area.

Okay thanks.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/dumorreg;-chick-starter-24%-50-lb?cm_vc=-10005

This is the bag of Dumor feed that I buy. I have not had any problems with the feed and my birds eat it fine.
Biggest tip I can give you about your new quail is figure out a less waste feeder system for them. Quail love to whip their feed around when they eat and they will drain an automatic feeder of all it's feed very quickly. One way to stop this is by limiting their head movement inside the feeder. If they can't whip their head around then they can't waste feed. Or make them stretch their necks a little bit to reach the feed, same concept.

This is the feeder system I came up with for my meat birds. It is a combination of a few designs that I saw here on backyard chickens. The coupler fitting limits the amount of feed that is dropped into the feed pan. And because the feed level is lower the birds have to reach in and any feed thrown around just falls back into the pan. My breeding quads reach their heads out of their pen to access their feed troughs. I keep the level low in the trough so that they can't whip the feed out.
Notice how I said "less mess feeder" there is going to be some waste, but it is minor compared to the waste I had when I first started raising quail.


Bush that is the same with my Tractor supply. I used to buy the Startina Gamebird Chow, but stock was not reliable so I switched to the Dumor 24% Gamebird feed and have not looked back. I go through atleast 4 bags a month depending on the amount of chicks I have at the time. Spring and fall are my busy seasons. Summers I don't hatch as many chicks because the heat is so unbearable down here in the south.

Chicken-Farmer

Could you tell me how you made that feeder?

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

I bought a bunch of these feeders from Tractor Supply

They are really supposed to be used with a mason jar as the feed hopper

But what ends up happening is the feed just free flows when the birds toss it out. The birds will waste an entire quart mason jar of food in a couple of hours. They only eat a little and toss the rest out.

So what I did was pull the mason jar attachment off of the feeder. It's only attached by folding a lip of the galvanized metal onto itself. I used a screw driver to unfold the metal and remove the jar attachment part.

Then I purchased a PVC reducer coupling. Mine were 3" reduced to 2".

I used a sharpie marker to trace around the reducer and onto the galvanized feeder lid. Then I used a metal saw blade and trimmed the hole large enough to accept the PVC reducer. From that point I added a 3" PVC pipe as a hopper. Make it as tall as you want.

The key is to seat the PVC reducer far enough into the feeder so only about a 1/2 " of space is available underneath it. This slows down how fast the feed dispenses and lowers the level of the feed in the feeder. The birds have to stick more of their head into the feeder and they can't beak it all out.

Simple redneck solution to a feed waste problem.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[quail325]

That is a great idea !! I'm going to try it.Did you glue the fitting to the hopper or is it just a press fit?

 

[BackYardQuail]

I bought a bunch of these feeders from Tractor Supply

They are really supposed to be used with a mason jar as the feed hopper

But what ends up happening is the feed just free flows when the birds toss it out. The birds will waste an entire quart mason jar of food in a couple of hours. They only eat a little and toss the rest out.

So what I did was pull the mason jar attachment off of the feeder. It's only attached by folding a lip of the galvanized metal onto itself. I used a screw driver to unfold the metal and remove the jar attachment part.

Then I purchased a PVC reducer coupling. Mine were 3" reduced to 2".

I used a sharpie marker to trace around the reducer and onto the galvanized feeder lid. Then I used a metal saw blade and trimmed the hole large enough to accept the PVC reducer. From that point I added a 3" PVC pipe as a hopper. Make it as tall as you want.

The key is to seat the PVC reducer far enough into the feeder so only about a 1/2 " of space is available underneath it. This slows down how fast the feed dispenses and lowers the level of the feed in the feeder. The birds have to stick more of their head into the feeder and they can't beak it all out.

Simple redneck solution to a feed waste problem.

Chicken-Farmer

Sorry about not replying on time, had my username changed and forgot that it was changed so I couldn't log on... Anyways, that is awesome! I went to TSC and bought a couple of those galv. feeders and will buy some PVC in a couple days and I'll make that. Thanks for sharing!

also did you cut any of the coupling to make the food flow out or did you just put it in the way it is?

 

[Quail Jailer]

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