odd wing feather growth on coturnix quail chicks

lomine

Crowing
8 Years
Aug 7, 2015
3,116
3,773
426
Peyton, CO
I have 19 coturnix quail chicks. Most of them seem to be feathering in just fine but a few have the feathers on the tips of their wings sticking out. Some have it on one side, some of both. It's hard to put in words so I'm including a picture. I tried to find information on what would cause this but came up short. Does anyone know what causes this? Will it correct itself or should I attempt to correct it?

Some background information: They are just over one week old. I got them as day olds from a person on Craigslist. They are currently in my house and are under a heat lamp. I have been having a bit of trouble keeping the brooder heat stable so sometimes it was running hotter then the recommended levels. The brooder is about 2 by 4 ft so they have plenty of room to get away from the heat. They sleep under the heat but are all over the place when awake. They have been on only game bird feed since hatch, 30% protein. I offer both dry and fermented.

My plan is to keep a few females and a male for eggs/breeding and then butcher the rest for meat. I have just a few that aren't the wild color and was hoping to keep more of those for breeding. The problem is that more of them have this odd feathering. If this is an environmental thing I can correct I'd like to try that first. If this is genetic I don't want to keep it in me breeders.



Also wanted to add a big THANK YOU to all those who have shared their knowledge and experiences on this forum. I did a lot of research beforehand and a good deal of it was on here.
 
Hi lomine
The feathers are full of blood when they are growing in. This makes them heavy and at times during rapid growth spurts will sag until the wing muscles adjust to the new load. I don't personally know of a case where it became permanent in a quail. Sure is a cute little guy.
 
Thank you so much for the response, That makes a lot of sense. Just within the last couple days it seems to have corrected itself on everyone except the one pictured and one other one. These two had the most extreme cases though so hoping they will follow suit.

Thanks again.
 
I just wanted to update this thread in case someone else runs across it in the future. At just over two weeks all the chicks have normal looking wings and feathers.
 

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