Supplementing protein for quail with crickets

Hardwarehank

Chirping
5 Years
Jul 28, 2017
22
23
86
Good morning,

Looking to the seasoned quail raisers for some advice.

I'm looking to purchase some jumbo coturnix day-old chicks in the next couple of weeks. Will be starting with about 40-50 to get a nice size flock started for next spring and will be culling all but a handful of the roos. Only problem is I want to raise them organically and the local feedstore only has organic feed available that tops out at 19% protein and apparently don't have any leads on sourcing organic game bird food. I'd prefer to stay away from ordering organic game bird online. I've asked them what they can do about ordering fish meal. There is an organic feed store about an hour away I plan to call and see what they have available/can do.

If that goes through I'm planning on farming crickets to make up for the protein shortfall in the feed. I figure I'll have to feed crickets daily or some type of insect daily. I'll be raising mealworms in addition. I also have a red wiggler farm that I can use too and could expand to some more tubs. My question is how many chick bite-sized(1/8-1/4 inch) crickets per day per chick would be a good number to make sure they get plenty of protein to grow as they should?

Looking up crude protein% for dry weight crickets falls around 58%.

What other considerations should I be making? What are my blind spots? Is this a bad idea, if so, why?

Thanks for reading.
 
I've used dried crickets and pulverized them in a blender to mix into the food but never tried live ones. I know someone whose tiny bantam chicken died due to a cricket leg getting stuck in her throat. Not sure how frequent an occurrence that is but something to keep in mind. My Button quail love worms so they could be another option. Just expose them very young so they learn to eat the live food as when they don't have a parent to show them what to do they can take them awhile to give it a go.
 
I've used dried crickets and pulverized them in a blender to mix into the food but never tried live ones. I know someone whose tiny bantam chicken died due to a cricket leg getting stuck in her throat. Not sure how frequent an occurrence that is but something to keep in mind. My Button quail love worms so they could be another option. Just expose them very young so they learn to eat the live food as when they don't have a parent to show them what to do they can take them awhile to give it a go.

Thanks for the suggestion. Didn't think to dry and grind them up and mix them directly with the feed. That might be the best way to go for the chicks. Wonder how the house would smell with roasting crickets in the oven :hmm.
 
Slight change of plans. I will be going with Dubia roaches instead of raising crickets. From the research I've done they seem to be superior to crickets in regards to management and feed quality.

Going to start with 30 females and 10 males for breeders from a local source on Craigslist. While I wait for the population to get to the point I can start harvesting them I'll just go with conventional gamebird starter for now. Won't be the end of the world.

Once I do have a population large enough to sustain harvest I plan on blending up this staple feed mix. Thinking of the following:

63% wheat
31% oats
2% kelp meal(minerals)
2% crab meal(calcium, minerals, some protein)
1% unrefined salt(minerals)
1% molasses(minerals)

Which I plan on offering as fermented feed.

In the winter I'll probably include cracked corn and BOSS(keep the BOSS to treats in the warmer months)

I'll probably feed the roaches whole because even if I could get away with roasting roaches in the oven to be turned into powder I don't think I'd want to. For chicks I may pulverize the roaches and mix that into their feed(mmm...).

In addition to all of this I plan to run the adults in tractors in my yard behind my guinea pig tractors to clean up any spilled feed/scraps and whatever else might catch their eye. Thinning out of worm bins will go to them as well. I'm thinking this should work out well.

Welcome any thoughts or suggestions.
 
Those roaches get pretty big. I'm not sure they CAN eat them whole. Haven't tried though, I might be underestimating the quail.
 
I may have to mash the majority of whatever roaches I end up feeding then stirring into the fermented feed right before setting it out. However, when they're born roaches can be as small as an 1/8th of an inch. I figure the adult coturnix could be able to get up to a 1/2 inch one down.
 
my baby bobwhite quail love house flies and small crickets. their parent go nuts for huge grasshoppers and crickets, plus a cicada once in a while. you would be surprised what they can get through their throats
 

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