No Waste Quail Feeder

[capobeach]

My quails were wasting so much feed I had to come up with something. I saw the shoe-box type, but I wanted something that would hold more feed an not take up too much space horizontally in the coop. I used a Costco pretzel barrel and PVC pipe. I've published an Instructable here http://www.instructables.com/id/No-Waste-Quail-Feeder/
Four or Six can feed at a time, depending on how many holes you make. It's working out quite well, and I just thought I'd share my design.

 

[abot87]

Wow that's a brilliant idea.

My quail are also considerably wasteful with their feed.
At least now I know of an affordable way to improve. Thanks!

 

[capobeach]

Thanks! The one other benefit I didn't mention is that the food stays free of droppings as well, which is a plus. The other feeders I've used they manage to stand on top and get poop into the food, which I imagine is not good for their health.

 

[abot87]

Can you add some more photos?

Would like to see the feeder as a whole.

 

[paneubert]

Can you add some more photos?

Would like to see the feeder as a whole.

There are a couple more at the link they posted. But I as well would like to see a little more. Especially the inserted vertical pipe that is used to fill it.

 

[capobeach]

The hopper is like a sleeve attached between the top opening and the bottom of the barrel.
It would have been better if I could have found something a bit wider so that it fit snugly in the mouth of the barrel.
As you can see from the first picture below, there is about a 1/2 inch gap between them at the top, but it works fine.
It is glued to the bottom of the barrel so it does not move. A 2-liter soda bottle inverted might actually work also instead of the ABS pipe.

I had to experiment a bit with the holes at the bottom of the sleeve. At first they were a bit too shallow and not enough feed was coming out.
The quail could still reach in and peck at the base to get feed, but I wanted it more free flowing so that they didn't have to try too hard once their head was through the hole.

View from the top:




Hope this helps!

 

[Oreo quail]

Very nice! I have a disposable food storage container that i cut holes in. It works with my 1 quail after I screwed the base to a board . Otherwise it was too light and kept getting tipped over. Now I find almost no wastage.

I like the inner chute for more storage of food. How big are the inner diameters of the pipe sections?

 

[SEP Board]

Very cool idea, thank you for sharing. I've been noticing how much food gets wasted so I'm going to be putting your idea to good use. Thank you again.

 

[capobeach]

Very nice! I have a disposable food storage container that i cut holes in. It works with my 1 quail after I screwed the base to a board . Otherwise it was too light and kept getting tipped over. Now I find almost no wastage.

I like the inner chute for more storage of food. How big are the inner diameters of the pipe sections?

I initially just cut holes, but the plastic was a bit sharp and I was worried about the quail injuring themselves or damaging the feathers on their necks. The little collars of pvc are smooth and add a bit of a lip to help keep the food in the bin.

The tube for the feed has an interior dimension of 4".
For the ports the quail stick their heads through, I actually tried 3 different dimensions.
First I used 1 1/2" pvc, but it was a bit large. The quail were able to still pull food through the hole as they were eating.
I went down to 1" pvc next, but it was a bit small. They would stick their heads through but it seemed tight and they didn't like it.
1 1/4" ended up being perfect. In the video I posted on the instructable linked above, you can see the quail have no issues with the size of the hole and freely use the feeder.