Some of you may be wondering, “Why don’t more people raise quail?” Here is why. They are a pain in the butt. The main issue is that they are extremely messy eaters and throw feed everywhere which makes them inefficient. Due to the way the cages are setup to catch poop underneath for easy cleaning spilled food gets mixed with bird crap which makes it impossible to just put it back in the feeder.

My quail will soon become dinner. That being said if you do want to raise quail, here are some pointers for the feeder issue.

I’ve tried several different feeding systems and this is the best I’ve come up with. The cheapest version is to cut some 1” holes.


I prototyped this with a tube that has the holes drilled in it at my friend’s homestead where they also raise quail. Thus far it is working well however some of the quail have poked themselves on the sharp edges so ensure you clear all of the burrs off of the plastic around the hole for their heads. This design also has a lid on the back for easy re-filling.

Here are some of the feeders that didn’t work so well mainly due to the birds being able to spill their food everywhere.

Thanks for reading my blog! For the latest projects and updates please subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow along as I set up a sustainable homestead with my tiny house 🙂