Grit and Calcium options and substitutes for quails

[mimpetlover19]

Hello

I have some Quails which I have been keeping for 2 months ... they are fine Alhamdulillah and growing well , except dat they arent laying any eggs yet .....
i had raised chickens (totally inside my house) and pigeons (in my balcony) during my school years wen I was in Qatar ... and I had always faced the problem of providing grit and proper calcium ... although all of them seemed to do fine without dem
But i still i want to provide them with proper grit and calcium

Here in Bangladesh , my grandmother (and many people around us ) keep free-range chickens and ducks ... they eat watever dey want , roam around freely and grow and reproduce just fine (here we live in a building with a large space around us , a pond , separate place for the animals and lots of trees, in Qatar we lived in a small rented flat) . they are fed with boiled rice (the left overs ) and another feed , i guess powdered husks of rice (we call it bhushi) mixed with the rice and water.

But for my quails , i hav to keep them indoors (cant really open dem up or they will fly away) , only sometimes i used to open dem up in my caged garden ... so i have pretty much provide everything to dem myself

For the grit , we dont really hav any like the ones i read on the internet , all that we hav are pieces of granite , cement and bricks , no much real stones or gravel .,
and as for calcium , all i can give them is crushed egg shells , i cant get oyster shells or supplementary calcium feed ... we do hav lots of apple snails in our ponds

So wat should I do ... or will they be just fine ....
wat other safe grit options are dere ?
how can i supplement dem with calcium properly ?? wat greens are rich in calcium and good for quails ??

 

[Marigold]

Hi Mimpetlover, I think I've answered some of your questions about grit, feed and calcium in my reply to your other post, which I read first. Until they're laying, the extra calcium isn't very important as they're not making eggshells yet, but long term they would need it as its not possible to let them free range. I think the main problem is that they need a high protein diet, higher than hens need, so boiled rice or husks wouldn't be enough for them. They seem to live life in the fast lane and their energy needs are high, with their early maturity and frequent laying, (once you can get them going!)

 

[mimpetlover19]

Thank you n
what all can i give to provide dem with high protein , other dan mealworms and all .... ?? please give me all possible options , even seeds and grains , if it possible

 

[rick]

I haven't got much experience, being fairly new to keeping chickens but I do think sprouting your grain (germinating the seed by soaking then rinsing) gets much more food value from it. Marigold says high energy so that would be just a couple of days to germinate, when the starch has just turned to sugars. If you leave it longer you get sprouts, a tasty treat and full of enzymes and vitamins but without soil the sugars will be dropping quickly.
If you have mealworms then I think you should have plenty of protein there.

 

[mimpetlover19]

Thank u
but which all seeds can give ??

 

[rick]

I give wheat and barely. A friend of mine has lots of wheat grain on a farm and, as it happens, I found barley in our corner shop and it comes from India. But anything like a grass seed and edible for humans should be OK. Be carful with beans - they shouldn't be eaten dry or uncooked. The lentils we get in England are split and wouldn't germinate. Lentils are legumes like beans.
What seeds can you get?

 

[Marigold]

My quails never ate wheat or barley, but they would eat chicken layers pellets which of course are mainly wheat plus everything else they need. I used sometimes to mix in wheat-free mixed bird food, which has a variety of seeds and small grains suitable for small birds and finches. You cN also use hulled sunflower seeds which are rich in protein and very nourishing. Wheat and barley have a low protein content so are not so suitable unless supplemented with other things.

 

[mimpetlover19]

what else seeds can be used ??

 

[rick]

I think your asking the wrong question mimpetlover. There isn't a definitive list. Try a search on the net for quail food - millet and fine grass seed seem to be the main ingredients of wild bird and finch seed mixes.
But what do you have locally that is cheap and available? Here wild bird seed is fairly cheap from pet shops and supermarkets but then so is chicken food.
There will be seed you can get that we have never heard of (maybe) but will be great. If there's some food in particular that your unsure of I'm sure someone will be able to help.

 

[mimpetlover19]

The problem in my place is dat since not very much people keep fancy pets or feed them different varieties of food , we dont have much options for seeds and feed for our birds ...... most of the people in my village (a bit modernized village) keep chickens and ducks and many keep parrots and pigeons .... quails are less common in our place and the fancy birds like budgies and finches are kept mainly by the rich people .....
People mainly feed their birds rice (both raw and boiled) , wheat , corn , mustard seeds ,, lentils and gram and unnatural pellets or feed sold by those shopkeepers .....
so it is hard for me to find good quality feed/seeds like the ones dat i read on the internet (which is mostly concerning the western nations) ...
.............. and moreover there arent any pet stores near my house , i have to buy the ingredients from local groceries and mix them myself ...and the place from whr i bought my quails is a bit far and there also there isnt proper emphasis on the feedstuff

dat is why i ask for all options possible because there is no guarantee i can find or get them

 

[Marigold]

Mustard seed sounds good, maybe you could also sprout this for them and feed it when the sprouts are about 1-2 cm long - just an idea. I guess you'll just have to experiment to see what they do eat - any smallish seeds or grains are worth a try. Sorry we can't be more help, from so far away!

 

[rick]

I've just done a search for cumin and coriander as additions to quail food. Both seem OK, at least in 1 or 2 % amounts of total feed. Good luck - it seems you are going to be our Bangladesh local quail expert

 

[mimpetlover19]

Thanks for the suggestion and also for the compliment