Adding protein to feed

I have some 24 percent protein feed mix for baby birds. I would like to get to at least 25% protein. I might need to add a little  calcium too. What should I do. It's for quail and I don't see a quail section on here.

Benton Lewis wrote:I have some 24 percent protein feed mix for baby birds. I would like to get to at least 25% protein. I might need to add a little  calcium too. What should I do. It's for quail and I don't see a quail section on here.

Hi Benton, I saw your post doesn't have any replies so I thought I would ask if you have thought about raising black soldier fly larvae.

Yes I have. I'm just getting started with quail. I love the idea of bsf. Might try to get a system to refeed the quail their feed by feeding them larvae that just ate their waste. I also am very interesting in learning to attract wild insects to the quail. A nightlight, which they will need anyway, can help attract bugs. I would like to know of more ways to attract bugs for them too.

I love quail, but they're total idiots.  I found it hard to feed them anything that wasn't standard feed.  Their little beaks don't do a good job on many greens or meats, so you'll likely have to feed them pretty small BFSL, but I think you should definitely try.  Fermenting the feed worked very well for me.

Hi Benton,

Do you have the ability to grow spirulina? If you add 3% spirulina by weight to your feed, that will get you well over 25% protien. With spirulina being between 40 and 70% protien, it can be beneficial to many types of livestock at 3% by weight. Going over 3% typically doesn't help, but thats depending on species. Definitely research every species application before use. Spirulina can be easy to grow in aquaculture, using things like worm castings and wood ash, and it grows fast. So depending on how much you need daily, will depend on the size tank you need to maintain sustainable daily harvests. Not sure if its a fit, but might be worth checking out.

Hope that helps.

Cheap cat biscuits? I was just trying to feed crappy grain-full cat biscuits that the cats refused to my chickens, they loved it whilst moulting and their new feathers are ever so shiny.

The easiest and cheapest way of getting high protein with other livestock, is to add molasses.

Travis Johnson wrote:The easiest and cheapest way of getting high protein with other livestock, is to add molasses.

I've seen molasses used for energy in feed, but never to increase the amount of protein.  Can you tell me how it does this?

Thanks

Timothy Markus wrote:I love quail, but they're total idiots.  I found it hard to feed them anything that wasn't standard feed.  Their little beaks don't do a good job on many greens or meats, so you'll likely have to feed them pretty small BFSL, but I think you should definitely try.  Fermenting the feed worked very well for me.

Total newbie to quail and I noticed the breaks were not even big enough to eat a large ant but they are only two weeks old. I hoped they would grow out of it.

Look up the Pearson's Square method of calculating for feed, then just add in enough high-protein feed (e.g. soybean meal or fish meal) to get whatever total protein content you want.