https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/quail-guard-drug-approved/

Link to report of cure for eye worms in quail.

A new medicated feed that combats deadly parasites in wild quail will be available to the public starting this fall. The new drug was developed by researchers at Texas Tech University with the financial support of Texas bird hunters, and it has proven effective in experimental settings on multiple ranches in the Lone Star State.


Heck yeah! GO RAIDERS!

now, just get them to it

That's a godsend.

What a discovery ; if it works!!! Quail have it tough, they are such a fragile bird. My problem is that the state needs to help the common rancher/farmer and allow grants to purchase these feeders and feed. It all boils down to money and out legislators waste tons of it on fruitless projects, spending my tax dollars on worthless crap. We spend tons of money and we should get some return for all the taxes on sporting goods. $200 tax on a suppressor!!!

Great discovery! We need all we can get that improves the lifespan of quail.

I am surprised there isn't much updated discussion of this on the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation web site. They mentioned the research to develop the medicated feed a couple of years ago but nada on what just happened.
My take is that some professional at the RPQRF with a very big ego has somehow felt slighted or bypassed by the approval. I don't have time for prima donnas and am done with that outfit.

Am I wrong, but seems like they just took a medication for domestic birds and approved it for use on wildlife?

As good as it all sounds, only rich quail can afford this.

I looked at the recommendations, the feed cost, and the cost of the special feeders they recommend. (We have existing Milo feeders, and this stuff will not work in them).

For our 6,000 acre quail lease, the first year cost would be $40,500

When I hear 6,000 acre quail lease… poboy isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind lol

6000 acres split 10 ways is not huge

This looks more and more like a scam promoted by the elite

Most intelligent post on this thread. I'm not a quail hunter, but I tried, through a couple of organizations, to help. The organizations were a joke. 'Plenty of money to actually help this bird, but the members are too busy measuring their own peckers to get anything right. 'Typical when you have a pervasive "good ol' boy" network. They don't get $%^& accomplished, but luuuv to hold banquets at the club.

Feed its self is estimated at .50 an acre. You only feed a few months a year. The feeders are $1250 and one per 200 acres. That’s what hurts.

Need Trump to subsidize it into to the farm bill

Way so much hate….

When I first hear about this, I thought we’d be broadcasting the Medicated feed along the ranch roads.

The FDA approval for wild quail use is tied to feeders that are as selective as possible toward quail.


…and this is not big quail country. It’s an After Deer lease and you hope for a couple of coveys each morning.

>>>Quail Safe Feeder

That's $8K for my place, just the feeders, for a bird, that I love seeing and hearing, but is never gonna be any numbers to hunt. Hell, it took me 5 years to see ONE, this, unusually wet Spring.

Yelp Feeders are the heavy cost, I bet you could depreciate them though

(I do keep a spreadsheet of any serious purchases, that would stay with the place, for capital gains tax reduction when we, or the kids, sell. )

If you’ve got a wildlife exemption, I would assume they and the feed could be a write off.

Chicken feeders….

fenbendazole has been used for worming dog for a lot of years. You can order it online, and buy at some stores. Just don’t know the ratio they are mixing with the feed.

Dr. Dale Rollins's podcast this week answered many of my questions except how I will talk my banker into covering 4000 acres!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podca...icated-feed/id1458539867?i=1000666262379

I'll be darned. The RPQRF tackled the topic head-on today.
https://www.quailresearch.org/episode-64-the-odyssey-of-quailguard-medicated-feed/

First thing is having quail. I haven't seen or heard any in Archer County in years.

I guarantee regular milo feeders will work fine but also feel like they will make a coated milo version of this in the very near future so it can be spread around, to get it to more of your birds, more easily. I just got off the phone with the feed store in Spur and he still hasn't gotten any.

Something that would sterilize fireants would help a bunch here.
Hundreds of quail around when I was a kid...haven't seen one in last 15 or more years in CenTex on same place.

Has anyone seen the medicated feed in any feed stores?

Couple of guys from our group just picked up all they had in Aledo (actually I think they had 5 bags left). Not sure when they'll have more. It's only being distributed by a handful of dealers.

Well, there you go. That's my excuse, for now at least. Distribution has some kinks to work out.

The only placed licensed to make this (currently) is Bryant Grain in Aledo. They have a retail feed store adjacent to the feed mill. From the conversation I had picking it up, it sounds like it is made in small batches, but they can make it up pretty quickly.

I reached out to them by email earlier this week and was told to call the retail store a call. They said I could pick up 10 bags Friday afternoon, but warned that people should always call before coming.

(817) 378-4423

Pricy...a buck a pound. We only have 4 quail feeders right now, and two of those will have to be modified so this stuff will flow through better. I'm off in the morning for that chore. I'm going to put the dogs to work scouting while I work on feeders, but it is going to get hot quick.




Here is a list of other distributors they have shipped to, but the guy warned to call them first.
-Aspermont (Feed Store Aspermont)
-Sweetwater (Big Country Feed)
-Lubbock (HF&C)
-Snyder (Snyder Farm & Ranch)

Thanks for posting nak I will be leaving Albuquerque Thursday and three of the towns are on my way home. gonna stop and see if any of the feed store has any.

We bought 10 bags at Jackson brothers in Abilene. We have 10 deer feeders on 2000 acres. We placed 1/2 bag of corn in bottom of each feeder then mixing a 1/4 bag of medicated feed for every 1 bag of corn. Maybe we peed away the money, but I bet it works. Done once in spring and once in fall cost is around 1100 total for the year. Feed looked like chicken scratch. If fed by itself bet would clog feeder hope this way it works. Thought process for this was when we used to plant wheat and wanting to add turnips for more feed and cover we would place wheat seed in drill and put a cup of turnip seeds in top of drill and it would filter through to the bottom and evenly disperse. Hope this works. We noticed after testing feeders about 3 or 4 times we were starting to see some of the feed on the ground. I am guessing we will be throwing this through the feeders for the next 30-40 days.

We bought 4 bags to try on part of our place in Collingsworth county. Quailguard recommends you feed this for a minimum of 21 days in the spring and fall. We really didn't want to spend big bucks on their feeders, so I built two to see if the quail would use this style of feeder. For some reason, the hogs didn't abuse it 18 hours after I set this one out. The quail found it late the next day. Each day we see more birds visiting the feeder, so I am ordering parts to build more. Dale Rollins took a couple of our birds a few years ago checking for eyeworms. He found we had a very high concentration of the parasites in each bird. We are late getting the feed out, but hopefully it works.

why is parks & wild life helping or doing?

The birds on my lease aren’t eating the medicated feed. We have cameras on them, they are eating the milo mixed in and spread around the feeders.

Also, if your putting the feed in a broadcast type with other feed, I’ve been told the UV rays from sunlight cause the medicated feed to lose its potency.

They slaughtered ours.

Good to hear!

This weeks podcast just so happens to be out it: https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/mep623-ronkendall-v2

The scientist said about $1 an acre to treat the quail. Not just eyeworms but cecal worms as well.

I cant wait to get a least to implement this on.


Next step will be to release wild birds into the areas they have been extirpated in, in Texas

My wife and I pass through Slaton every weekend, chasing our grandson's football schedule. And yes, his team is still in the chase. The highway goes right by Quail Safe's location, and it looks like there is zero activity. I wonder if they have moved or if the price of their feeder took them down.

I am a little torn on this as well. Across the 19-20 season, I was hunting a place south of Lubbock and that is where I first noticed birds adversely effected by eyeworms. One straggler from a covey was acting like a pen raised bird, standing out in the open and hard to get to fly and then flew at about half speed. One eye was almost completely eaten out and the other had worms. We checked all birds before cleaning and 45% had worms and we sent off one to Texas Tech. I felt like that was maybe part of the unsolved mystery of what was driving quail decline in areas like the northern panhandle or sandy plum thicket country in the rolling plains, areas where large ranches really haven't changed as far as grazing practices, ground cover etc in 30+ years. I have checked birds in Texas, OK, and Kansas (and this year in MT and WY as well) and havent witnessed a near death bird like that again or found a high percentage of worms.

I dont disagree that this eye worm preventative is funded by a well heeled contingent, but I know several and those that I know are very passionate quail conservationists. They also have invested a lot and want to recoup their investment and probably make some money longer term, which is understandable.

Bring us forward to last week and I called the rancher friend south of Lubbock and he said that eyeworms or not there are a ton of birds this year. So I say a little torn because there are clearly other drivers of quail decline at work here on the rolling plains quail population. Not sure if the eyeworms are 15% of the decline, maybe 35% of the decline tops would be my highly speculative guess. If it 20 or 30%, then that is a needle mover if you have a large property that you will have access to for years and therefore it makes sense to make the investment...my two cents. I would have invested on the property I own 20 years ago for sure if it was available as a "why not?", but I would only have only been 4 or 5 feeders (and I would have been a lot more aggressive on feral hog control than I was back then as well).

Anybody eating the birds they’ve taken that are eating the medicated feed?

Plan to be eating a few thanksgiving weekend. But ours had eat all we gave them by September.

Good to hear!

Update to the chase
It ended on Friday.
.