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Nowadays, many people are starting to show interest in raising birds. They are especially interested in quails. And if you are reading this article, you are probably interested in this too. The thing is that quails are unpretentious and do not require much space to keep them. But they have a lot of benefits. Everyone knows how healthy quail eggs are. And their meat is tender and tasty. Breeding these birds is very profitable.
However, in the process you will have many questions, one of which is what to feed quails at home? This is logical, because a lot depends on the birds’ diet. From this article you will learn what the composition of food for quails is, how many times a day they can be fed, seasonal feeding and much more.
Industrial feed
The first option that you may have is feeding with compound feed. This is an excellent option, as they contain a complex of useful vitamins for both laying and meat quails. Depending on this, the composition of feed for quails changes. If we talk about branded feed, we can note several types:
- Well-known mixed feed PK-5. Its main part is corn and wheat.There is a small portion of fishmeal, animal fat and soybean or sunflower meal. Salt, chalk and various kinds of phosphates are used as mineral additives. Lysine must be present among the components. The percentage of components is as follows: proteins - 35% no less, minerals - 5%, number of grains - 60%. Considering the composition of feed for quails, each quail needs to be fed approximately 30 g throughout the day.
- PC-1 and PC-2. It contains corn and wheat, as well as small amounts of chalk and salt. Fish or fish is used as the protein base. bone flour and soybean meal. Wheat bran or a little barley is added to this type of feed. PC-1 and PC-2 are considered one of the simplest and cheapest compositions for quail. The daily norm for one adult bird is 27 g.
- PK-2.2, PK-6 and PK-4. Feed is used for already matured adult quails. The percentage of components is as follows: grains - 60%, protein - 30% and minerals - 10%. Corn, wheat and barley are added as grain in equal proportions. The protein is fishmeal, meal, lysine and feed yeast. Minerals include chalk, salt and phosphate. Sometimes wheat flour, bran and seashells are added to the composition.
Compound feed for quails of our own production
Many experienced poultry farmers have gained extensive experience in feeding quails. Thanks to this, they developed their own food recipes that are ideal for quail. As usual, the main component is grains.Additional elements include fruits and vegetables or peelings from them. During production, the products are washed well and all spoiled parts are removed. After which the composition is boiled for approximately 40 minutes. After cooling, everything is crushed to make porridge.
Vegetables and fruits in the food are an excellent source of microelements. Thanks to them, quails receive healthy nutrition, and as a result, their meat becomes even tastier and the quality of their eggs increases. You can even add vegetables to commercial feeds.
Making feed for quails with your own hands is quite simple:
- Grind 1 kg of wheat, 400 g of corn and 100 g of barley.
- Add 1 tsp to the composition. bone meal and half a tsp. unrefined vegetable oil.
- To saturate the food with minerals, add 1 tsp. salt, chalk and shells.
- The resulting food is enough to feed one head for 1.5 months. You can give quails dry food or wash it with water until it becomes a paste.
- The source of protein can be cottage cheese, fish or minced meat. For vitamins and minerals in your DIY quail food, use fresh herbs and crushed eggshells.
In fact, the food eaten by quails can be different. All components in the recipe may vary, depending on the situation.
Keeping and feeding quails during the season
What you feed the quail plays an important role. Some people feed quails until they drop so that they grow faster. But, this is not always correct. Quails need to be fed regularly, 3-4 times a day.This is done at equal intervals. There is no way to pour the daily amount of food into the feeder and go about your business. If you feed growing quails, you need to make sure that they eat enough. They grow quickly and cannot tolerate interruptions in feeding.
During the first week, quails should be fed boiled eggs. They need to be rubbed with the shell. On the second day, 2 g of cottage cheese is added to the food for each bird. On the third day, add fresh greens to the food. On the fourth day, the number of eggs should be reduced by adding more cottage cheese to the food. Young animals must be fed at least 5 times a day. Starting from the second week, you can give the young animals regular quail feed.
It is necessary to distribute food for adult quails so that most of it remains for evening feeding. For this purpose, grain feed is suitable, which takes longer to digest. This way the birds will always be full. There must be water in the drinking bowl. The table below shows how much and what elements quail should receive from food.
Feeding laying hens
Feed for laying hens must be selected very carefully. It should contain a balanced amount of essential vitamins and minerals. Laying hens need sufficient amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat. Taking all this into account when selecting food, you can achieve high egg production results.
The diet of laying hens should consist of 25% protein. This is very important for the full formation of eggs. Also, with this diet, the number of eggs laid will increase significantly.The daily feed requirement for laying quail is 25–30 g. If the amount of feed is insufficient, the quail will simply stop laying eggs. Usually, the highest productivity of laying hens lasts until 11 months of life. It is not recommended to keep quails longer. So they are slaughtered for meat up to a year.
Fattening quails for meat
Quails with physical defects, quails after laying eggs, or individuals specially raised for this purpose are usually fattened for meat. This feeding is introduced gradually. A sharply increased amount of feed can even kill the bird. Males and females need to be kept separately, preferably placed in separate cages.
To fatten quail chicks, they use the same amount of food as for a large bird. Gradually you need to add more fat and corn to the quail feed. You can prepare food from mixed feed for broilers and peas (about 20%). Peas must be boiled for 30–40 minutes.
Remember that you can completely switch quails to a new food only after 4 days. The first few days you just need to add new food to the old one, gradually increasing its amount. This feeding should continue for a month. During this time, the amount of feed consumed should increase by 8%. If all requirements are met, a fattened quail should weigh about 150–160 grams.
Checking the correctness of the diet
To check whether quails are eating properly, you need to weigh the birds from time to time. Attention! An ordinary quail should weigh about 100 grams by 2 months, and meat birds should weigh 160 grams.
Subject to feeding rules, the quail should have a large amount of subcutaneous fat on its chest. If the indicators after weighing do not match, it is worth reviewing the composition of the feed or replacing it with another.
Conclusion
So, we saw how to properly feed quails at home, we learned how to independently prepare food for chicks, laying hens and adults. As the data shows, quail grow very quickly and do not need large amounts of feed. The main rule is to feed quails often and use the right food. The food must contain all the substances necessary for growth and weight gain. Birds should always be well-fed; the number of eggs laid by hens depends on this. By following these simple rules you can achieve success in raising quails.
Thank you for the clearly written information. I was just getting ready to breed quails at my dacha in the summer.