Hence the premix. But i think your over exagerating the effects of dilution. You dont have to add a bunch of soy meal to bump the protein significantly. I think the nutritional requirements are close enough it will be ok remember its just a starter. People over estimate the importance of pelleted feed. All maner of foul were raised just fine on whatever extra grain the farmer had for hundreds of years. Buying feed at all basicly started circa 1945.
If there is too little of something then diluting it will making it a lot worse. Have you researched what quails need in there diet? Have you research what bad nutrition in animals can do? It is quit interesting what is needed and what will cause problems over 5 generation down the line. This is for quails not chickens I don’t think many people had quails that long ago but I have not researched that so I don’t know. yes the animals can probably live on random grains but that would probably not be the best, I am not saying pellets are better if you spend the time to make a good feed for the quails then it probably would be better then pellets but that will be very difficult and expensive so for many people it is not the best option.
Yes i have done quite a bit of research on feed, and making your own feed. I currently mix some of my own food.Coturnix have been domesticated since the 13th centry, thats ballpark 750 years. Obviously this is all just conjecture. People don't eat "nutritionaly balanced" pellets and seem to do fine. I think its hubrius to think that man can make the perfect food when nature has been doing that since the dawn of time. Certainly pellets have a place and i use quite a bit myself but adding 10% soy to a starter feed is not going to cause problems in my opinion. As for using chicken feed my local feed mill has animal nutritionists develop all their mixes and they have a quail starter and grower but they say to use chicken layer. The point is its not like your feeding chicken food to your horse the nutritional requirements are somewhat similar between the two species.
The problem I see with chicken feed is the methionine and lysine is lower then quail need, I don’t know how adding soy meal to it would change it. According to this http://www.worldscientificnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WSN-492-2016-223-235.pdf (unless I have miss understood it which is possible) if the methionine and lysine is to low then adding protein wont help special if it lowers the methionine and lysine content.
Nope, that has nothing to do with this.
Thanks Ratchnick, but isnt most soy GMO? and i think SpotTheCat is right as it will change the calories and macros of the feed. It would be a really helpful if there was an animal nutritionist youtube channel that goes through this and a simple but effective formula for homemade quail feed with the calorie/macro nutrient breakdown. Does anyone know of any such channel/website?
Ratchnick, this is spot on, which is why im trying my best to feed my quail naturally and not rely on any pellets, but so far im loosing
It would be really helpful if you could share what you have researched so far. ThanksYou could use another protein source like meat or fish meal, or meal worms if you dont want to use soy. Of course adding anything to the feed will change the nutritional makeup that is not in question. The asertion that it will degrade the quality of the feed (anything you add brings its own nutrients) or even if it does damage the overall ballance of the feed will it be to the extent that matters is what i would question. Its common practice to feed other things besides pellets like treets or greens, worms ect. These things also change the ballance of the overall diet, the same as if you added something to the feed.
