Quail

[flossy]

The good hubby has just about finished building me a quail house, now I need to know what to feed them. I would like to suppliment a bit of what they eat. Are they like chickens, and can eat from the garden and sprouted grains, bugs kind of thing or is it very different. I have looked over at BYC but they only seem to think that game bird starter is the only thing that can and should be feed. If that's true, that's fine, but I know in the wild there aren't lovely people putting out bowls of gbs all over the world!! Any info would be great.

 

[CrownofThorns]

We fed ours chick crumbles and they did pretty well on it. We hard a hard time getting really hard eggs though.

We also added in flax seeds, dessicated coconut and kelp for extra nutrition but still had brittle eggshells.

 

[Wannabefree]

Free choice calcium for those shells. Quail need more protein as well. I used turkey starter or high protein chick feed, at least 20% but 28% gamebird feed is better. When they should have gone on layer feed I just kept their protein high and fed crushed eggshells free choice. I never had soft shells.

 

[Wifezilla]

I feed mine 28% protein game bird feed, but I also give them worms, crickets, a bowl of wild bird seed to munch on and peas. Like the ducks they LOVE thawed out frozen peas. I also offer them greens of various types throughout the summer. They like clover and lettuce. They do not like cucumbers or carrots.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Yes, you can naturally feed quail, but their protein requirements are very high, so the majority fo their food should be protein based. Bugs, worms, etc, even meat scraps woudl be good, or eggs. If you are going to feed them naturally, they wil need some calcium supplementation. so, think of bugs (protein) grains, sprouted or not, and then calcium when feeding naturally. If you are going to feed grains, make sure they have access to some type of grit to break up the seeds in their gizzard. And any transition should be made gradual, esp. having them switch to whole grains from pelleted, as the gizzard is a muscle, and on crumbles, it has not been exercised, so you need to strangthen that muscle.

 

[flossy]

Thanks everyone. Can I give them seaweeds or fish? I live in New Zealand, and literally a one minute walk away from the beach, so that would be awful conveinent.

 

[Wifezilla]

I would try a small amount and see if they like it.

 

[flossy]

Sweet, thanks for that. Now I need to get me some quail to go in their pretty new house!!