QuailGuard, LLC

03/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BeCeFjcMA/?mibextid=WC7FNe QuailGuard is making a positive difference

02/24/2026

Doing some “research” a.k.a. quail hunting with Dr. Ron Kendall of the Texas-Tech Wildlife Toxicology Lab and W7 Ranch owner- David Williams.
W7 has been successfully using QuailGuard in QuailSafe feeders to control parasites on their quail with fantastic results. We harvested bobwhite and scaled quail (a.k.a. blue quail) these two were my first blue quail in 10 years. One of them was banded so we will gain additional information and have some statistics to share now that the season is almost over. With both QuailGuard and habitat work, they have documented a 400% increase in bobwhite and a 266% increase in blue quail since 2021.

02/14/2026

Northern Bobwhite and Scaled Quail sharing the feed plate of a Quail Safe during spring medication period utilizing QuailGuard, LLC feed. Learn more about the treatment protocol and why to medicate your wild quail at: QuailGuard.com

02/14/2026

At Snipes Ranch we have been using QuailGuard to control parasites on our quail for the past 7 years. We have flushed 320 wild bobwhite coveys in 52 hours of hunting. Which comes to a little over 6 coveys per hour. A hypothesis is that multiple years of treatment, disrupts the parasite lifecycle and exponentially reduces the parasites each year. We use the same feeders for nonmedicated milo and wheat in the winter months. After the ice storm we are still finding very large coveys. We had a few birds that weighed less than 150 grams but the average weight was a healthy 175 grams. Pigs have tried their best to flip our QuailSafe feeders but they have never succeeded.

01/31/2026

This is a remarkable finding. It supports the research that proves that supplemental feeding helps with over winter survival. 71.4% die off in one week is a wildlife catastrophe!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C5KCd46QH/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Some quick numbers concerning how our study site fared during the storm:

Hours at/below freezing: 95 hours.
Lowest air temperature recorded: 4° F.
Lowest windchill recorded: -13° F.

Our onsite weather station does not have heated sensors, so we can't know exactly how much ice and snow we received, but we do know that like many places, we received a decent layer of freezing rain over which ~3 - 4 inches of snow fell.

We were trapping bobwhites in the days before the storm, and have resumed trapping after it began to warm of this week. Of the birds we caught last week and recaptured this week, the average weight loss was 25.7 g. The lowest amount was 1 g, the highest amount was 63 g. That was nearly 40% of its mass lost in nine days!

Our main study right now is comparing areas receiving intensive management (year-round supplemental feeding into the habitat and seasonal meso-mammal removal) to areas not receiving this management.

Our treatment area (the area being fed) had 5.9% of radio collared birds die between Friday 23 January and yesterday, 29 January.

The control area (no broadcast feeding) lost 71.4% of radio collared birds during the same time.

We have documented the survival benefits during snow/ice of broadcasting milo into the cover in the past, but this is just a continuing example of how much of a difference it can make.

01/29/2026

At the Snipes Ranch in Stonewall County, Texas we use QuailSafe feeders for medicated feed for our wild bobwhite in April and again in October. During the worst part of winter, we also load them with non-medicated wheat and milo. This is especially important when we have a blanket of snow and ice covering their natural food for multiple days. In April, we will put one bag of QuailGuard in each feeder. There is plenty of natural food in the summer and we put as second bag of QuailGuard in the feeders in October. We have one feeder for every 100 acres. Cost of the QuailGuard feed is $1.00 per acre. Prior to this storm, we were flushing 6.3 large coveys per hour. We will do some more "research" in the coming weeks. :-)

01/24/2026

So far this season, I have flushed 229 coveys at my ranch near Aspermont while hunting 36.5 hours with dogs on the ground. This comes to 6.3 coveys per hour which is my best year in the past ten. This includes taking time to search for cripples and lost birds. These were big coveys 15+ birds. We have been using QuailGuard over the past 7 years as part of the FDA test and approval process. I have personally inspected the birds' eyes and have seen eyeworms drop from 100% infection rates to less than 12% this year. The birds that are infected have 1-2 worms per bird vs 8-10 worms per infected bird. We have great habitat at Snipes Ranch and we had good spring rains but I have no doubt that QuailGuard has made the difference between us and other ranches. The cost is $.50 per acre after paying for the cost of the feeders.
It has been well documented by the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation and others that the Rolling Plains has 80% infection rates of both eyeworms and cecal worms.

I know a few people are asking for absolute proof that parasites are one of the causes of mortality. To me, it comes down to the simple question, would you rather have healthy birds or infected birds. Here is a video I took a few years ago to show how bad it can be. -Joe Crafton

12/08/2025

12/07/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17jdkM9Pdr/?mibextid=WC7FNe Based on discussions with neighboring ranchers… the difference must be our use of QuailGuard

10/22/2025

Dr. Kendall worked with Texas Monthly to create a video segment on PBS that will increase the awareness of this critical issue.

Explore how innovation can change the course of history.

10/22/2025

QuailGuard inventor and Texas Tech Professor Recognized was for Efforts to Revive Texas Wild Quail | October 2025 | Texas Tech Now Newsletter

Ronald Kendall received an individual award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for developing medicated feed to restore a key game population.

04/10/2025

We are proud that the inventor of QuailGuard, Dr. Ron Kendal was awarded the highest environmental award in the State of Texas. It is the 2025 Texas Environmental Excellence Award in the individual category from the Office of the Governor and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

TEEA 2025 Winner: Individual