neutralizing quail poop

[quailmann]

Then I'm going with 24 hours. Newbie so I can't risk anything. We only have chicken feed in the whole country 19-20% protein maximum.

The few days I added fishmeal to increase protein - I had the smell almost knock me unconscious

 

[jnj3225]

Try some apple sider vinegar in their drinking water

How much?

 

[LJHC]

I was told to add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to a gallon of water and to use it when giving water to my quail. It may be psychological, but it really seems to help. I also use wood shavings on the poop tray. Good luck!

 

[april29]

Hi guys

I'm new here, posted a few threads, got some great answers. My setup is that I have 250 quail in a 4 tiered cage and 2 other cages. They all drop some mighty heavy poo

I tried wood shavings for bedding but gets too heavy when cleaning and worms/ maggots (I dont know what) form faster. Maximum 2 days and then I see worms roaming in the poop

I have them inside a spare room and no garden space. Can't bury.

You can imagine what a load 250 of them drop.
Any solutions? Anyway to neutralize ssmell? Dont have DE or stall dry in my country.

After reading about how messy they are I decided I'm going to put my quail in a chicken tractor and move it around the yard.

 

[Susan Skylark]

This is an interesting old thread! Not sure how fermenting feed or apple cider vinegar would affect overall smell, but would certainly increase time spent messing around with bird chores as well as make it far more vital to offer fresh feed and water everyday as moist organic material (that included vinegar!) is a perfect growing condition for microbes. Air circulation/ventilation will keep things dry and reduce smell. Reducing population density certainly helps. Heat is a bad idea, even if it might dry things out, it will increase the release of odor. It is getting cold here and that certainly helps! Another idea I didn’t see mention was decreasing the protein in the diet (to around 21 percent or so) which is enough for growth/egg production but limits excessive protein which is excreted as ammonia or other nitrogenous waste. My chicks grew quick on 30 percent starter but the birds on 21 are a bit less odiferous (as well as slower to mature by a couple weeks). Also type of bedding might be interesting, horse bedding pellets absorb their own volume in liquid but pine shavings and hemp it is about half. In this case cleaning twice a day might be best as bedding weight was mentioned as a factor if stocking density can’t be decreased. Keeping things dry helps too (still trying to perfect my watering system and soon I’ll have freezing temps to deal with too!). There’s an idea: invent a no leak/clog/freeze watering system for quail and you might be rich. Nice case study!