So how much do quails eat ??
About 25 grams a day each, So currently i am feeding 2lbs a day. 1lb goes to the 24 in the pen and the rest split between my cages.
I use 3 different feeders, In the pen i have a trough feeder and a bucket feeder,
The bucket feeder gets about 3/4 of the feed, Basically its a 5 gallon bucket with holes cut into the side, The quails can go in and get food as they want, This usually has food left in it all day and is empty each morning. I originally used this feeder with an automatic deer feeder, The feeder sat on top and would dispense food (around 1/4lb) 3 times a day, I recently broke the feeder tho and haven't had the time to replace it.
The trough feeder is basically that, a metal through with a free spinning bar on top that stops birds climbing and standing on it (not really tho) This gets about 1/4 of the feed and is usually gone in a couple of hours.
The 3rd type of feeders i use is box feeders, These are boxs that have a feeding trough attached so that they automatically fill as the quails eat. I use rabbit feeders with a solid bottom (they also come with a grate bottom) I modify them by adding a piece of card inside to reduce the size of the slot and as such reducing the amount of food in the trough. Quails can be messy eaters and if given a big pile of food will throw it all over, In a pen its not to bad as they will pick it up off the floor but in a cage that food tends to be wasted. I am also experimenting with placing 1x1 wire over the through, This reduced the amount of movement they have whist eating and again reduces food waste.
