Raising quail is a very exciting experience, but can come with lots of extra work, along with wasted money when not using the proper gear. As with all poultry, the number one battle, that most breeders face, is combatting wasted feed. Regardless of whether you rear your birds on the ground or in a raised pen, feed WILL be wasted. Even when on the ground, 9 times out of 10, birds will not mess with feed anymore after it has been scratched down to the ground (unless they get really hungry).
Depending on the quail variety, along with the pen type, I was experiencing upwards of 50% feed wasted in my beginning years of raising game birds. Not only does this translate to A LOT of wasted money leading to higher overhead for raising them, but several other issues can and do arise from this wasted feed. Excess feed will eventually mold up and can lead to illnesses in your birds, along with attracting unwanted insects to the area…and not to mention the extra odors from the moldy feed.
Being an engineer by trade, I never accept anything for face value and always see the potential for improvements. The first step in solving this issue was understanding how the birds waste the food. The number one way that quail will waste feed is by scratching it out of the feeders with their feet. As are 90% of all commercial feeders from the store, notice how the holes are located just barely an inch from ground level – this makes scratching feed out with their feet “so easy that even a baby could do it”.
The second issue with most commercial feeders is also due to their heights, which cause the birds to bend over to eat. This allows them to easily knock even more feed out of the feeders by using their beaks to either scratch the feed out the holes directly across the hole they are feeding out of or out of the hole located on either side of their current hole.
Now that I understood ‘how’ the feed was being wasted, I now had a starting point of where to begin to solve this issue. Ideally, you want the feeder being used to be located at about the height of the bird’s gizzard to prevent them from having to bend over to feed (hence the reason most chicken feeders are hanging feeders). The second realization I had was the need to remove feeder slots that were directly next to another and also to remove feeder slots that were directly across from another.
After multiple tests and trials, I decided to go with the above style design (all drawings done by myself in 3D CAD software) using 3-inch PVC, which places the feeder around gizzard height and also had alternating feeder slots. This size PVC is the perfect height for most game birds, and I use it in all of my pens – coturnix quail, bobwhite quail, mountain quail, mearns quail, and chukar partridges. Being that you can get a 10-foot length of PVC for just a couple bucks, you can make several of these for very cheap. The only other material that you will need is either some plywood or particle board along with some trim nails.
Looking at the feeder from directly above, these are the dimensions that you want to shoot for when making your cuts on the pipe (All dimensions in INCHES). NOTE: the dimensions are taken from a horizontal (flat) measurement – NOT taken along the curve of the pipe. If you were to measure along the curve of the pipe, measurements become slightly longer along with the actual holes appearing more squared off than rounded. This will make more sense once you see the final product at the end of the post.
Once you have the cuts made on the pipe, your final product should look like the above drawing with measurements as close as possible to being shown. Schedule 40 pipe is the pipe that I use, as you don’t really need the thicker walls, but you may use whichever schedule pipe that you wish. Cut off a small section of pipe to use as a template, and trace the inner ‘hole’ of the pipe onto the wood you chose to use, and use this template to make 2 circles – cut both of them out. Ideally you want to use a minimum wood thickness of ½” and no more than ¾” thick. Each one will be attached via trim nails to the PVC.
Now cut 2 more feet approximately 4 inches long and 1.5 inches wide. Using 2 more trim nails, attach each foot to the bottom of the pipe. Ensure that these nails go through the pipe and end inside the end caps being sure that they do not penetrate the feeding area.
Your final product should now look very similar as does the one in the picture above. I have tried figuring out a way to upload a template that you guys could use to tape to your pipe for the cutting part, but haven’t come up with a solution yet. I have a template that I use for my own, but the issue is the posting of it and ensuring that it prints out to proper dimensions for you to use. I will continue to try to find a solution for that, and will update if I find an answer out.
In regards to the wasted feed, the results have been beyond phenomenal. Eliminating all feed from being wasted is going to be impossible, but I would estimate that I dropped from an average of 40% wasted originally to being under 5% now. Do the math for that one over a year’s period, and I think you would be surprised at the money savings that come from that!
If you have any questions or need clarification, please do post in the comments and I will definitely help you out.
Do any of you have any other style feeders that helped you prevent feed loss?