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The main share of the owner's money for keeping quail goes to purchasing food. Improperly organized feeding can turn a profitable business into a loss-making one. Often such problems arise due to poor feeders. Birds are capable of scattering up to 35% of their feed, which is an extra cost, plus dirt inside the cages. Will help correct the situation bunker feeder for quail, installed outside cells. Birds through the bars will only reach the food with their heads to eat, without the slightest chance of scattering it.
Basic requirements for feeders
The development of chicks and adults will depend on how hygiene is maintained. When breeding quails, the following requirements are imposed on feeders:
- It is advisable to choose material for making feeders that is environmentally friendly and non-corrosive. If it is metal, then it is better to take stainless steel or non-ferrous alloys. Glass or porcelain will do, but this design will be fragile. The use of food grade plastic is allowed. Ideally, any material for a feeder should be washed well.
- The size of the feeder depends on the number of animals in the cage.In terms of volume, the bunker should accommodate a little more feed, poured for one-time feeding of all the birds in the cage.
- The design of the product should provide the quail with easy access to feed, but at the same time, the height of the sides must be selected so that the bird does not scoop out the feed from it.
It is important to take care of convenient human access to the bunker, because feed will have to be poured at least three times a day.
The designs of quail feeders differ in the way they feed. The most common models are:
- Tray type feeders can be installed both inside and outside the cage. The external location does not allow quails to scatter food. Tray models are suitable for the same type of food, and are installed only for chicks.
- Trough type feeders Suitable for feeding chicks, as well as adult quails. The structure is fixed from the outside of the cage. When using a trough feeder, you need to take care of the minimum approach width for each quail at the rate of 50 mm for each individual.
- Hopper type feeders are considered the best invention for feeding quails. It can be installed outside or inside the cage. Only dry food is poured inside the bunker, which is gradually poured into the lower tray. As the quail eats the feed in the tray, a new portion is poured from the hopper itself.
- Automatic feeders – This is an improved modification of the bunker model. They are rarely used in households. Most often, such structures are used on a quail farm to simplify feeding a large number of quails. The automatic feeder consists of the same tray with a hopper, but a dispenser operating on a timer has been added.The food is automatically poured into the tray at the set time without human intervention.
Each feeder has its own advantages and disadvantages, but for a household, the bunker model would be the ideal choice.
Self-production of bunker structure
It is very easy to make a bunker feeder for quails with your own hands. Here you don’t even need to build a complex drawing. We'll start the work right away by cutting off the galvanized profile. It will serve as a tray where food will be supplied. The length of the profile depends on the dimensions of the cage and the number of birds. Each quail should have enough space to freely approach the tray.
The next elements will be the side walls of the hopper and at the same time the plugs for the ends of the profile. Two identical pieces resembling the number seven are cut out of multilayer plywood. If you turn them over, you get a shape that resembles a boot. The top of the blanks is expanded for easy filling of feed. The width of the bottom of the inverted seven should correspond to the distance between the side flanges of the profile.
Both sevens are inserted upside down on the sides of the cut profile and secured with self-tapping screws. Next, two rectangular blanks are cut from a sheet of plywood along the length of the profile. These will be the main walls of the bunker. Both blanks are similarly fastened with self-tapping screws to the profile flanges and boot-shaped sides of the hopper.
At this point the feeder is almost ready. There was a tray at the bottom and a raised V-shaped bunker at the side. The product can be secured inside the cage, but it is better to install it outside. The quails will reach the tray through the mesh, and this makes it more convenient for the owner to pour food into the bin.
Such a structure does not have to be made of plywood. If you have a welding machine, a quail feeder can be welded from stainless steel.
By the way, we looked at the process of making a feeder, but did not find out what volume of the bunker is needed. Here you will have to make simple calculations. An adult quail eats approximately 30 g of feed in one feeding. You need to feed the bird 3 times a day. If quails are fed for meat, the daily ration is increased up to four times. The amount of food eaten per day must be multiplied by the number of quails living in the cage. This will be the daily food ration for all quails feeding from the bunker feeder. Now all that remains is to calculate the volume of the bunker so that all this feed will fit. It is advisable to add a little margin to the result obtained.
If the availability of material and the dimensions of the cage allow you to make the bunker larger, this will be a big plus. This feeder can be filled with food for several days.
The video shows the feeder from the profile:
The simplest bunker feeder made from PET bottles
In the household, many are accustomed to making feeders and drinking bowls for poultry from plastic bottles. Let's not break tradition and make a bunker model in 30 minutes. To work, you will need a two-liter plastic bottle, a sharp knife and wood screws.
We take several steps:
- We take the bottle and, stepping back 100 mm from the neck, cut holes in a circle with a diameter of 20 mm. You should get 5-6 round windows.
- Now, using a sharp knife above the holes made, you need to cut off the upper tapering part of the bottle. Here, instead of a knife, you can use scissors.
- The resulting blank is turned over and placed inside the second part of the bottle, having previously cut off its bottom.
- The finished hopper is placed in a tray, where it is screwed through the bottle cap with a self-tapping screw.
The bunker feeder for quails made from a PET bottle is ready, you can pour in the food and watch how it pours out through the holes.
As you can see, making a bunker feeder for quails at home is quite simple. Initially, you just need to correctly calculate its volume, and then start cutting out the fragments.
