Compound feed for quails: types and description
- PC-1 and PC-2. Contains: chalk, salt, wheat, corn. To saturate with protein, add soybean meal, bone or fish meal. Feeding rates - 27 grams per head.
- PC-5. Ingredients: soybean or sunflower meal, as well as corn, fish meal, wheat. Chalk, phosphates, salt are used as mineral additives. As a percentage, this compound feed contains 60% grain, 5% minerals, 35% protein. The daily allowance for one head of this feed is approximately 30 grams.
- Compound feeds of the PK-4 and PK-6 brands are used for feeding adult poultry. The composition includes 60% of cereals, in particular, barley, wheat, corn, as well as 30% of protein - this is lysine, fish meal, meal and 5% of minerals (phosphates, salt, chalk). Bran, wheat flour can also be added.
It is important to properly store protein-rich compound feed. The relevant information must be indicated by the manufacturer. Spoiled feed can lead to deaths among livestock.
Other options
An analogue of the above-described recipe is a variety of PC-2-2. It differs somewhat in the content of mineral supplements and protein, and therefore is intended exclusively for feeding quails, which are more than one month old.
As usual, the base composition of another feed - PC-1 - also includes all the same corn and wheat. Unlike the previous version, barley and some wheat bran are also added to it. In addition, the protein component in this case makes up 40% of the feed: approximately 2/3 of these percent is fishmeal, and the remaining third is filled with bone meal.
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Attention! Due to the high content of the protein component, special attention should be paid to the storage conditions of this feed, since if the temperature and humidity are inadequate, it can deteriorate and become poisonous to birds.
This composition of feed is suitable for laying quail during the period of intensive egg laying, since it contains a huge amount of protein, is balanced in vitamins and microelements.
All of these feeds are the most common in both private farms and industrial enterprises. It is generally accepted that the rate of all these types of compound feed is about 27 grams per day per poultry. Young animals are fed as needed, since, in terms of their weight, they eat much more adult birds.
These compound feeds are well suited even for four to five-day-old chicks, but when serving them, the mixture needs to be soaked for a couple of hours in slightly warm water. By the way, we remind you: regardless of age, physiological state and breed, birds should have water at any time.
DIY compound feed for quails
Experienced poultry farmers develop their own diet and feeding recipes. We will give some tips for beginners and show you how to make the best poultry feed with your own hands.
DIY compound feed for quails
For quails to fly well or gain weight, they need to be fed a well-balanced nutritious food. You can get by with ready-made mixtures in which all the components are contained in the right proportions, or you can prepare the feed yourself.
The composition of feed for quails: what can you feed
- Oats.This culture is rich in vitamin B and microelements, therefore it is advisable to include oats in the diet as a basis. Before feeding, it must be peeled and sieved.
- Corn. An irreplaceable source of energy. This culture should be given along with meat and bone or fish meal, since corn contains few amino acids and a lot of starch.
- Legumes. Rich in amino acids, vegetable fats and proteins. Basic: lentils, soybeans, peas, etc.
- Wheat should be included in the diet.
- The required amount of protein is contained in meat and bone meal and fish meal. These two components must either be alternated or mixed.
- If possible, cottage cheese will not be superfluous in the composition of the feed - a valuable source of protein.
- Vegetables. Especially useful in winter (boiled potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage).
- Quail feed should contain minerals, sources - shell, chalk, crushed eggshell, gravel.
Winter period
In winter, carrots, cabbage, beet tops and additives are good. Yeast, cottage cheese, potatoes can act as additives. Store-bought vitamin supplements are also desirable here.
How to feed quails so that they rush well
In urban conditions, it is more difficult to independently provide a proper forage base for birds than in rural ones. You cannot do without compound feed, or without other industrial mixtures. Therefore, in the question of what to feed the quails so that they rush well, it is logical to focus on the available opportunities.
Is it possible to feed quails with bread
This issue is controversial. Most experts agree that a small amount of white bread and ground crackers can be fed to birds. But it is advisable to do this by mixing bread with other products, using it only as a top dressing.
You need to use black bread even less, making sure that it contains a minimum of newfangled additives (or it would be better without them at all).
Attention must be paid to the quality of the bread.
Feeding quail from day 1
Feeding the diurnal quail
Many visitors ask: how to feed the quail after hatching. There are two main diet options for chicks:
- On the first day, the diurnal quails are fed with boiled crushed eggs. On the second day, add cottage cheese (2 grams per chick). On the third day, finely chopped fresh herbs are introduced, preferably dandelion, onion or young nettle. From the fourth day, the volume of boiled eggs should be reduced and a little more cottage cheese should be added. Weekly quails can be given boiled fish, boiled millet, finely grated carrots.
- In the first days of life, it is better to start feeding the quails with ready-made compound feeds, they are also called starting feeds. For laying hens, the PK-2 compound feed is optimal, for poultry raised for meat - PK-5.
Important! Before each feeding, the feeders must be emptied of the remaining feed in order to prevent fermentation and to protect the young from digestive problems.
From the first day, chicks need to provide free access to drink. Until 3 days of age, water must be boiled and a small amount of potassium permanganate (a couple of crystals) added to it. Up to 5 days of the life of the chicks, water must also be boiled, but by the end of the first week, potassium permanganate can no longer be added.
Advice! To avoid vitamin deficiency, after 5-6 days of life, quail can begin to solder them with chiktonik.
Formulation of rations
To check how balanced the diet of the quail is and whether it is enough for normal growth, selective weighing is carried out. Weighing should be done regularly. To do this, take any bird from the flock, and if the food for the quails was formulated correctly, it will gain the optimal amount of subcutaneous fat in the breast area.
Growing quails should be weighed regularly
On the first day after the birth of the chick and up to the age of 7 days, they are fed a certain diet, which can only be done in the kitchen.The starter diet includes the following products:
- During the first days of life, chicks are given crushed eggs and shells.
- On the third day, you can add grated low-fat cottage cheese to the eggs.
- On day 5, you can give finely chopped greens.
- The daily diet of adults is unevenly divided. In the last feeding it is given more. For the last feeding, the poultry houses recommend adding a large amount of grain: the quails digest it for a long time, which means that they will feel full until the morning.
The next stage is the age from 7 days. At this time, an adult diet is introduced. If it is difficult to prepare homemade feed, you can use the purchased compound feed. It is better to introduce compound feed gradually, as the chicks are not yet old enough to feed only on it. They begin to be considered adults in a month, then they can prepare homemade food, which is usually fed to their adult quails.
How much and what to give to the birds depends, of course, on age and how they are going to be used. Cooking food for females is the most responsible business. Without good food, they refuse to produce eggs, and their own health is poor. An obligatory component in their feed is protein, it should be at least 26%.
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How to feed weekly quails
Feeding weekly quails
From 14 to 28 days of life of chicks, ready-made feed is considered optimal, which contains 24-26% protein. At this age, quails especially need proteins, therefore, if possible, it is advisable to saturate the feed with protein products, for example, cottage cheese or boiled fish. Fresh chopped herbs can be added to provide vitamins. From day 14, it is recommended to include gravel and small shells in the diet to improve food digestion.
Another question that is often of interest to novice poultry farmers: what grass can be fed to quails? You can feed cabbage leaves, lettuce, spinach, as well as beet tops, clover, nettle, green onions, parsley, legumes, alfalfa. The greens must be pre-chopped and added to the mash.
Second recipe
Here is the second recipe for quail food. Take 700 grams of corn, and then mix them with 400 grams of wheat and 100 grams of any legume. Use a grinder to grind the feed. Then add a teaspoon of unrefined sunflower oil to the resulting mixture, add a teaspoon of crushed seashell there, as well as a teaspoon of chalk and table salt.
The advantage of this food is that it can be used not only in a dry state, but also in the form of a liquid gruel, properly mixed with water. By the way, quails are very fond of water, so they will especially like the latter option.
As in the past, all components are designed to prepare a portion of feed, which one quail can eat for 45 days.
Feeding quail after 1 month
Feeding adult quails
At the age of 30 to 42 days, the bird is transferred to an "adult" diet. They feed during this period of life three times a day. When developing a feeding recipe, you should increase the volume of grain and reduce the amount of compound feed to the level of 15%. The fact is that at this age, excess protein can lead to premature puberty. For quails fed for meat, the PK-6 compound feed will be optimal.
How much does it cost?
If you keep a couple of quails "for the soul", then you probably don't pay much attention to the cost of feed. But in the case when your goal is large-scale breeding of these birds, it is advisable to know about the composition of the compound feed (which we wrote about above).Knowing the composition, you can easily distinguish really high-quality feed from commonplace premixes, which are sold at absolutely exorbitant prices.
On average in the country, food for quail, the price of which will now be described by us, is sold under the same conditions. In different cities, the cost of feed can vary from 5 to 30 rubles per kilogram. So, in Moscow and Kazan you can buy compound feed for 12-15 rubles, in Novgorod you can find it for only 9 rubles.
How to feed your hens for better egg production
For laying hens, it is necessary to develop a complete, well-balanced diet that will contain the right amount of trace elements, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
The amount of protein in the feed for layers should be in the order of 26%. This requirement is imperative to improve the quality of eggs and increase egg production. Do not forget to add crushed eggshells to the feed to saturate the body with calcium. One head per day needs 25-30 grams of feed.
Grain is mandatory in the diet; in its absence, the bird may simply stop rushing.
Benefits of Waste Feed
Why is this food so useful? Firstly, the leftover fruits and vegetables are environmentally safe products. Secondly, they contain a huge amount of vitamins and minerals that are extremely important for the health of birds.
In addition, all trace elements have a positive effect on the quality of meat and eggs. If you are using industrially made compound feed, then such a homemade gruel can be added to it in small portions. Note that finely crushed quail or chicken eggs can also be added there. This is especially true when you are making feed for laying quail.
But such a mixture cannot rightfully be called a compound feed. Therefore, now we will tell you about one recipe, which in many respects repeats the industrial varieties.
How to fatten quails for meat
Poultry should be fed for meat gradually, since after a sharp transition to a different diet and volume, problems with the work of the gastrointestinal tract may arise. The transfer is usually made within four days. Feeding rates are the same as for adult birds, but more fat and corn should be included in the diet.
A simple and effective recipe for fattening meat: 80% compound feed for broiler quails and 20% peas, boiled for 30 minutes.
Quails are fed for a month. The last 7 days have increased the daily allowance by about 8%. By this age, with the correct diet, the weight of one individual should be at least 160 grams.
To improve the taste of meat, fish, garlic, onions should be removed from the diet and chopped carrots should be added.
Vitamins
On sale there are special premixes for quails of different ages (Salvit, Compound, Purina, Felutsen). If it is not possible to buy them, you can use premixes or BMVD for broilers.
BMVD for broilers.
You can add vitamins to your drink. The drinking scheme is as follows: for 5 days in a row, a vitamin solution is added to the water, followed by a monthly break. The following vitamins are suitable: chiktonic, tetrahydrovit, gamavit, and gammatonic.
Clean water should be readily available to birds. To prevent the quails from overturning bowls and bowls, use autodrinkers. The water temperature for quails is comfortable at 18-20 ° C.
Once every 3 weeks, drinkers should be washed with detergents to remove sediment and algae.
As a conclusion, it is worth noting that quails are not such whimsical and capricious birds in food, as some farmers claim. The main thing is to immediately remember that it is categorically impossible to give, and what, on the contrary, should be emphasized when making up the diet. That, perhaps, is all!
Quail feeding depending on the season
Feeding domestic and decorative quails should be complete in terms of composition and quality, provide the body's energy needs depending on the season.
The consumption of nutrients by the body of birds in different seasons of the year and in different environmental conditions is not the same, this must be taken into account when compiling feed mixtures and determining the daily rate.
A feature of feeding quail in the summer is the presence of fresh greens, insects, earthworms and the like in the bird's diet to a greater extent.
In winter, instead of fresh greens, there is grass harvested from the summer. In the absence of natural vitamins at this time, feed mixtures should be enriched with special additives.
