Quail Feed Cost Calculator

What does it cost to feed quail?

A Coturnix quail eats about 25 grams (0.9 oz) of feed per day. That is one-fifth of what a standard chicken eats. A flock of 12 Coturnix costs roughly the same to feed as 2 to 3 chickens, which is the single fact that surprises most people coming to quail from chickens.

The economics of quail protein per dollar of feed are excellent. Because the birds are tiny and mature fast, the feed-to-output ratio is hard to beat in a backyard setting. The calculator above takes the daily intake figure for your species and life stage, multiplies by flock size, and converts it into monthly pounds, bags per year, and cost in your currency.

A note on where these figures come from. We built this because the existing online estimates for quail feed cost are vague and usually copied from chicken figures. The intake numbers here are calibrated against gamebird feeding guidance. If you weigh your own feed and your numbers differ, the contact page is at the top of the site.

Quail feed cost by flock size

These figures use the calculator's own model: adult Coturnix at about 25 grams per day, fed gamebird crumble at $22 per 50 lb bag. Change the species, life stage, or bag price in the tool above and your numbers move with them.

Real costs land close to this in practice. Keeper logs at 2026 feed prices commonly report a small laying flock running near $100 a year, which matches the per-bird math above. These are consumption figures, not purchase figures: feed waste is the main thing that pushes a real bill higher, and we apply no wastage allowance because no published figure for quail exists. A no-spill feeder pays for itself quickly.

Why quail need gamebird feed, not chicken feed

Mississippi State Extension Publication 2383 gives the only published nutrient requirements for quail we could find, and it is more specific than the single number this page used to quote. For Coturnix: 24% protein for starter (0-6 weeks), 18% for finisher and layer, with laying birds needing 2.75% calcium against a chick’s 0.85%.

That table changes the argument about chicken feed, and makes it sharper rather than weaker. The problem with chicken layer feed is not mainly protein — at 16 to 18 percent it is marginal against an adult requirement of 18, not catastrophically short. The problem is calcium. Layer feed carries roughly 4 percent to support eggshells, and a quail chick needs 0.85 percent. Feeding it to growing birds means close to five times the calcium they should get, during the period MSU describes as carrying “the highest level of protein a bird receives during its lifetime”. That is the combination worth avoiding, and it is a chick problem far more than an adult one.

Underfed growing birds show it in slower growth and poorer feathering, and sustained excess calcium damages a young bird’s kidneys. The symptoms creep in slowly enough that keepers often blame everything except the feed. Many farm stores do not stock gamebird crumble, so it is worth ordering in bulk online or finding a local feed mill that carries it — or using turkey starter, which is far more widely stocked.

Turkey starter is a good substitute, and commercial gamebird starters comfortably clear the requirement — Purina’s game bird starter, labelled for quail from 0 to 6 weeks, guarantees 30 percent protein against MSU’s 24 percent minimum. A higher-protein bag is not wrong; MSU publishes minimums, not targets. Chicken chick starter at about 20 percent is the honest middle case: its calcium suits a growing bird, but it leaves a chick four points short of the starter figure at the stage where protein matters most. If chicken feed is all you can get, starter is clearly better than layer — but for chicks that is a compromise, not an equivalent.

Medicated feed, and the part about eggs

Medicated gamebird feed is normal, and for growing birds Mississippi State recommends it. Coccidiosis, it says, “is difficult to control by sanitation practices alone. The best prevention is continuous use of a coccidiostat in the feed” — fed from hatch until the last week before slaughter, or until about 16 weeks for birds kept as breeders. It also recommends including bacitracin in the diets of all game birds, at 50 to 200 grams per ton, as a preventative against ulcerative enteritis, the disease commonly called quail disease.

This is worth stating clearly because the advice runs the other way for some species. Medicated chicken feed is dosed for a chicken’s intake and can overdose a duck, which is why our duck pages warn against it. Quail are not in that position: gamebird feeds are formulated for gamebirds, and the medication in them is intended for these birds.

The catch is the withdrawal period, and it matters most for the default setting on this page. MSU says to always comply with instructions requiring a withdrawal before slaughter or before saving eggs for human consumption. Most backyard quail are kept for eggs, so if you are feeding a medicated ration, read the bag: you may need to discard eggs while it is being fed. That single point is the one most likely to catch a backyard keeper out, and it is rarely mentioned anywhere.

One disagreement to flag rather than resolve. MSU names two coccidiostats with FDA approval for quail feeds, monensin sodium (Coban) and amprolium. Retail and keeper sources dispute the amprolium half of that, arguing it is cleared for pheasants rather than quail and may not be effective against the coccidia species quail carry. We have not been able to settle it, so treat the label on your bag as the authority.

Quail vs chicken feed economics

The numbers favor quail at almost every turn:

• 12 Coturnix quail cost roughly $8 to $11 per month to feed, versus $20 to $30 for 6 chickens.
• Quail eggs are smaller but more numerous per dollar of feed.
• Quail reach laying age at 7 weeks versus 18 to 22 weeks for chickens.
• Break-even on a quail setup happens much faster than chickens because both the feed bill and the time-to-first-egg are dramatically shorter.

Common mistakes

1. Feeding chicken layer feed to chicks. The calcium is roughly five times what a growing quail needs, and the protein is six to eight points short.
2. Not accounting for chick starter. It is expensive per ounce but consumed in tiny amounts for only about three weeks.
3. Buying small bags. The 50 lb size is significantly cheaper per ounce for quail just as it is for chickens.
4. Overfeeding worry. Quail self-regulate well, so always-available feed is fine. They do not gorge themselves.

Where to go next

Feed cost is one input into the bigger picture:

• The Quail Cage Size Calculator tells you how many birds your space can hold, which sets your total feed bill.
• The Quail Egg Production Calculator takes your monthly feed cost and turns it into a net-savings and break-even figure.
• The Feed Consumption Calculator shows how the same spend compares for a flock of chickens.
• The First-Year Cost Calculator rolls feed into the full cost of getting started.
• The Water Consumption Calculator helps size drinkers — and quail chicks drown in open dishes, so fill the first drinker with marbles.

Sources

• Nutrient requirements, feeding stages, and medicated feed: Mississippi State University Extension — Publication 2383, “Feeding Quail.” Its table gives Coturnix (Pharaoh) requirements as Starter (0–6 wk) 24.0% protein / 0.85% calcium / 0.60% phosphorus, Finisher (6 wk–market) 18.0% / 0.65% / 0.50%, and Layer (6 wk+) 18.0% / 2.75% / 0.65%. Bobwhite figures run 23–24% at starter and 18–20% after. “The starter diet has the highest level of protein a bird receives during its lifetime.” On supplements: “Feeding other ingredients, either mixed with the feed or fed separately, upsets the balance of nutrients in the complete feed.” On medication: coccidiosis “is difficult to control by sanitation practices alone. The best prevention is continuous use of a coccidiostat in the feed”; bacitracin at 50–200 g/ton is recommended in all game bird diets against ulcerative enteritis; and always observe any withdrawal period “before slaughter or saving eggs for human consumption.” It also notes commercial starter crumbles are frequently too large for newly hatched quail and need further grinding.
• Feeding programme by stage: Mississippi State University Extension — “Quail Feeding Programs.” Starter runs to six or eight weeks; Coturnix mature earlier than Bobwhite and may begin laying at six to eight weeks of age, which brackets the 7-week figure we use.
• A commercial starter for comparison: Purina — Game Bird 30% Protein Starter. Product guidance rather than research, cited only to show what is on the shelf: guaranteed 30.00% crude protein and 1.00–1.50% calcium, labelled for quail from 0 to 6 weeks. It exceeds MSU’s 24% minimum, which is not a problem — MSU publishes minimums, not targets.

Extension coverage of Coturnix is thin, and it is worth saying so. As we found writing the Quail Cage Size Calculator, published extension work on quail is mostly about Bobwhite, which are a game-management species in the US; Coturnix are largely documented by hatcheries and keepers. Publication 2383 is the exception and the reason this page can cite real nutrient figures at all.

What is ours rather than published: every daily intake figure in the model (25 g adult Coturnix, 5 g chick, 15 g juvenile; 34/7/20 g for Bobwhite) — MSU publishes nutrient concentrations, not grams eaten per day, so the quantities behind every number on this page are our own estimates. So are the stage boundaries (0–3, 3–7 weeks), which do not match MSU’s 0–6 week starter window; the 280 eggs per hen behind cost per dozen, which is a first-year figure while our own Quail Egg Production Calculator carries age tiers this page does not; and all price figures, including the $22 default and the $20–28 range. We apply no wastage allowance, because we found no published figure for quail. One known simplification: the juvenile figure is flat at 15 g across 3–7 weeks, while intake actually climbs toward the adult 25 g over that window, so a six-week bird is understated.