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The bulk of the money of the owner of the quail is spent on the purchase of feed. Improperly organized feeding can turn a profitable business into a loss-making one. Often such problems arise from poor feeders. Birds are able to scatter up to 35% of the feed, and this is already an extra cost, plus dirt inside the cages. To fix the situation will help bunker feeder for quails, set outside cells... Birds through the grate will only reach for the stern with their head to eat, not having the slightest chance to scatter 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 the feeders:
- It is advisable to choose the material for the manufacture of feeders 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 it will be fragile. The use of food grade plastic is allowed. Ideally, any material for a feeder should be well washed.
- The size of the trough depends on the number of livestock in the cage. In terms of volume, the hopper should hold a little more feed poured in to feed the entire bird in the cage one time.
- The design of the product should provide the quail with easy access to the feed, but at the same time, the height of the sides must be chosen so that the bird does not rake the compound feed out of it.
It is important to take care of convenient human access to the bunker, because the feed will have to be poured at least three times a day.
The designs of quail feeders differ in the way they are fed. The most common models are:
- Tray type feeders can be installed both inside and outside the cage. The external arrangement does not give the quails the opportunity to scatter feed. The trough 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. Fixation of the structure is performed 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 considered the best invention for quail feeding. It can be installed outside and inside the cage. Only dry food is poured into the hopper, which is gradually poured into the lower pan. As the quail eats up the compound feed in the pallet, a new portion itself is poured from the bunker.
- Automatic feeders Is an improved modification of the bunker model. They are rarely used in the household. Most often, such designs are used on a quail farm to simplify feeding a large number of quails. The auto-feeder consists of the same tray with the hopper, only a timer-operated dispenser is added. The feed is automatically poured into the tray at the set time without human intervention.
Each of the feeders has its own advantages and disadvantages, but a bunker model is the ideal choice for a household.
Self-production of the bunker structure
Making a bunker feeder for quail with your own hands is very easy. You don't even need to build a complex drawing here. We will immediately begin the work by cutting off the galvanized profile. It will serve as a tray where feed will be fed.The length of the profile depends on the size 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 caps of the ends of the profile. Two identical blanks are cut out of plywood, resembling the number seven. If you turn them over, you get a figure resembling a boot. The top of the blanks expands for the convenience of filling the feed. The width of the bottom of the inverted seven should correspond to the distance between the side flanges of the profile.
Both sevens upside down are inserted on the sides of the cut profile and fixed 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 with profile shelves and boot-shaped hopper sides.
At this, the feeder is almost ready. The bottom is a tray, on the side is a towering V-shaped bunker. You can fix the product inside the cage, but it is better to install it outside. Quails through the net will reach the tray, and it is more convenient for the owner to pour feed into the bunker.
This structure does not have to be made of plywood. If you have a welding machine, the 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 how much volume of the bunker is needed. Here you have to make the simplest calculations. An adult quail eats about 30 g of compound 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 ration of feed for all quail feeding from the bunker feeder. Now it remains to calculate the volume of the hopper so that all this feed will fit in. It is advisable to add a little margin to the result obtained.
If the availability of material and the size of the cage allows you to make the bunker larger, this will be a big plus. In such a feeder, it will be possible to fill in food for several days.
The video shows the feeder from the profile:
The simplest PET bottle hopper feeder
In the household, many are accustomed to making feeders and drinkers for poultry from plastic bottles. Let's not break the tradition, and we will make a bunker model in 30 minutes. For work, you need a two-liter plastic bottle, a sharp knife and wood screws.
Let's take a few steps:
- We take a bottle and, stepping back from the neck 100 mm, cut holes with a diameter of 20 mm in a circle. You should get 5-6 round windows.
- Now, with a sharp knife above the holes made, it is necessary 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 pallet, where it is screwed through with a self-tapping screw through the bottle cap.
The bunker feeder for quail from a PET bottle is ready, you can pour the feed and watch it pour out through the holes.
As you can see, making a quail bunker feeder at home is quite simple. Initially, you just need to correctly calculate its volume, and then proceed to cutting the fragments.
