Every time I buy H & H I feel a bit sick in my stomach it’s so expensive, but seriously I see pics of other birds the same age as my chicks and it’s night and day sometimes. It’s REALLY good, but so pricey i even made a no waste feeder of sorts for the chicks.
Tbh I’m not sure about the calcium. When I first bought it, lockdown for covid had just begun, everything was sold out, my options were limited and I bought it. The chicks did so well I’ve been afraid to switch it out. I try to wean them off as their growth slows because it’s so expensive. If you just have a couple as pets it’s fine, I paid more for hamster food, I pay like $85+ per bag of dog food and I use a bag in 2 weeks, but if it works it’s worth it. However, I’m a bit of a hatchaholic and the food hurts the bottom line so I compromise. I love my quail more than the average person loves their livestock, but I still eat them, so they’re not pets.
Interesting question!
Sometimes failure to thrive is simply failure to thrive and the bird being treated right now would have been euthanized and was hatched with a possible nutrient deficiency or clear genetic weakness that will NOT help anyone's flock, carrying possible lethal genes or not. All parasites, deficiency, and disease will effect the weak first. Stinks that not all thrive, even when we provide all their needs.
No, it would not be a wise LONG term choice for chicks.. as quail never need that high of calcium not even for breeding according to Merck veterinary manual..
Now that I know it’s white down lethal I could look it up, reading about it, one thing I found interesting was that the chicks showed a larger number of transversal bars than normal pharaohs.
