Maybe you did something else wrong, if your quail were dying off. Any number of things may have been wrong.
They don't require suppliments... You won't loose production without suppliments.

Seriously, why be so anal and fight and kick and scream over something as stupid as absolutely specific requirements, when it's already been proven time and time again that there's nothing wrong with another method? I'm sorry that you don't personally agree, but I know that it can be done without issues, and I know that I can raise them just fine with my methods. Now can we stop fighting over something so ridiculously stupid as how you raised and lost your birds?! My personal experience has proven to me that it can be done at a much lesser cost than raising rats, and if there are no issues as to feeding them to the balls, then what does it matter? I'm sorry that you didn't have very good luck with your birds, but I seem to be doing just fine, and many others seem to do just fine without spending a fortune on special feeds, suppliments and thousand dollar pieces of equipment. Like I said, I'm sorry that it didn't seem to work out for you, but plenty of hobbiests have done just fine without the extra glits and expenses that you seem to think are a requirement.

Does anyone actually have any valid input on why or why not they may or may not work for feeding ball pythons? If there are reasons other than what is listed, I'd like to look further into it before I actually attempt to feed them to the balls here.