No Waste Feeder Ports
DUE TO TRAVEL SCHEDULE, WE WILL NOT BE SHIPPING BETWEEN 10/17 - 11/5. WE WILL RESUME SHIPPING ORDERS ON 11/6.
Ask 100 coturnix quail owners what the most frustrating part of raising quail is, and 99 of them will give you the same answer. THEY WASTE SO MUCH FEED! We feel your pain. Or at least we used to. Here at Midwest Quail Farm, we have hundreds of quail for our hatching egg shipping business. That equals a LOT of $20 feed bags. And a LOT of frustration when we see poop trays full of feed. We have tried every "no waste" feeder on the market, and in our experience none of them actually work. Coturnix quail are notoriously messy eaters, and we finally decided that we needed to find a solution.
We connected with a CAD Designer and 3D printer, to design and build the perfect no mess feeder created specifically for coturnix quail. First we looked at all the ineffective feeders we could find, to figure out why they were failing. The first problem was the size and shape of the opening. If there is space around the birds' heads, then there's space for feed to escape. We didn't just pick a size. We measured the heads and necks of our biggest birds, and designed the opening to fit snugly when when birds stick their heads in to eat. When your quail put their heads in our ports, their feathers will completely fill the opening. It's pretty simple. If the hole is plugged, then food can't shoot out of the hole.
The next concern was the depth of the food. It doesn't matter how tight the opening is, if the feed is high enough that the quail can peck at it without putting their heads into the opening. So we extended the back end of the feeder to be longer and deeper. The result is the the quail cannot get to the feed without fully committing their heads into the port. We also widened the back end of the port so that once their head is inside, there's plenty of room to peck around at the food.
Lastly was material. Every version we bought from Etsy and Amazon was made out of a cheap material known as PLA . PLA will discolor and become brittle in the sun. And in extreme heat it will warp and droop. Since we know that a lot of our customers keep their quail outside, we spent the extra money and made our ports out of high quality ASA material. It has high UV resistance, so it won't discolor or degrade in sunlight. And it won't warp or shrink in extreme temperatures. It's also very durable and moisture resistant, unlike PLA or ABS printing material.
We tested these feeders out for two weeks before pulling the trigger and making enough to list for sale. Real numbers here folks. In the cages where we are using these feeders, we were going through one bag of feed every 2 days. Since we installed our no waste feeders we have been going trough one bag of feed every 3 1/2 days. That's over a 40% real life savings on feed. The feeders paid for themselves in a week!
INSTALLATION: Just choose a feeder. You can use anything. Buckets, rubbermaid totes, etc. We use ice bins, but anything will work. Drill a 1 1/2" hole and slide the port in. A small drop of glue is recommended to make sure they don't spin or get pulled out. Make sure that they are high enough in your container to allow at least 1/2" of feed under the feed end of the port.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DO NOT SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. WE ONLY SHIP TO U.S. ADDRESSES.
