Quail eggshells thin and fragile

[wein315]

Recently, my quail started laying eggs with sift and thin shells. I'm adding oyster shells to her food but it's not helping

 

[BantamLover21]

She might not be eating the oyster shell. My bantam chickens, which are similar in size to quail, do not like eating oyster shell because the pieces are big and hard. Instead, I give sprinkle very finely ground eggshell over their feed. Consequently, they consume plenty of calcium-rich eggshell whenever they eat.

What feed are you feeding your quail? I assume, because they are quail, that you are not feeding them chicken layer feed. But I'm wondering if if would be possible to give quail layer feed. I think that would help with the shell problems, too. Hopefully someone with more quail experience will come along!

 

[DHinton]

would adding black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) to your girls' diet help?

i'd guess that FL would be like LA and if you have compost with veggie/fruit scraps, you already have a huge supply available.

 

[buttonquailtx]

Black soldier fly larva would be an excellent way to add calcium. Another trick would be to buy some reptile calcium powder (without D3) and sprinkle it on their food.

You can also buy a cheap coffee grinder for about $10 and grind the oyster shell into a fine powder so you can sprinkle it on their food.

 

[buttonquailtx]

One more idea I forgot to add. If you check in the vitamin isle at your local grocery store, you can find liquid calcium. It is normally strawberry flavored. Mix about 3 to 4 tablespoons into a gallon of their drinking water.

I do this for my bearded dragons, and it works well.

 

[DHinton]

on a sidenote, which may be related to the eggs...

our quail were born on june 6. we picked them up at like 3ish weeks. they started laying around 6ish weeks. i've noticed that this past week, the eggs are all a bit larger than what they had been (actually, one of them is laying like double the size of all the eggs we've seen prior to this week).

we give them "fodder" a few times (3-5) a week, and i THINK it's the purina brand of layer feed (not the pellet, the other kind... mash?), and they get black soldier fly larvae every day.

i don't know if it's because they're getting a bit more mature-sized and the first eggs tend to be smaller? we have plans of enclosing underneath their pen so they can also graze down there; but, that might be another week or two in the making.