All of my baby quail died

[ctquail]

Yesterday morning I went and checked on my baby quail they are about 2 weeks old they were fine and happy then this morning I went and checked of them and they were all dead I feed them everyday and water them I don't know if they may have caught something from the last batch of quail because I didn't clean then inside of the pen it's a wire bottom so they aren't standing in their poo any one know what may have happened I want to hatch out more but I don't want the to just randomly drop dead?

 

[paneubert]

How many were there? Sounds more like a heat/cold issue. Like they either got cooked, or froze. If we are talking only a few then maybe it was a disease or coincidence that they all died at the same time. But if you had a large number, a disease seems less likely to kill them all at the same time. Do you only check on them once a day? If you are only checking every 24 hours, they could have died over the entire period. Once again, if we are talking only a few total, then maybe disease. If we are talking 50, I would assume they died not all at once, but over that 24 hour period.

 

[ctquail]

I had about 50 but the brooder stays at 100 and I dropped it to 95 I normally check them 2 time a day one else in the morning once at night for the first few week but I didn't get a chance to look last night so they may have died last night I had a few die over the first week and I thought it was nothing just the weak dying out or something like that but then I went out this morning and all but two were dead and the last two just died a few min ago

 

[paneubert]

Do they have the ability to get to a place that is not as hot? Is the temp being measured at the ground? I am just trying to think of other things to check. Having 48 die all at once seems very suspicious. Weird poops or anything?

 

[ctquail]

yea they can get pretty far from the heater its on one end of the brooder and the other end is nice and cool just in case it gets to hot i measure the temp at their level its a little bit under the heater they poop fine eat fine and where drinking water the last two they looked very weak and where kinda curled up i tried giving them water and they where trying to eat but they ended up dying anyway I've hatched out quail in the same thing before this batch they all made it and are grown the ones that died where eating wild game bird starter i don't think it was medicated when they hatched they weren't as chipper as the ones before them they didn't really seem as happy.

 

[DK newbie]

Any clues from the position or appearance of the dead birds? Near the heat source or far away? Spread out over the entire brooder or all in the same area? Any visible injuries? Did they look like they died in their sleep or like they had been struggling (wings out, ruffled feathers or something)?
Your best clues might be the two survivors. If there are no visible injuries and the dead birds were somewhat evenly spread in the brooder, I'm thinking poison. Either some kind of toxic fume - birds are very sensitive to those - or something in their feed or water, like a super dangerous organism that grows very quickly or some substance that has fallen into it or whatever. It's hard to tell what's most likely without seeing your setup, but try to think 'poisoning' and take a look at it yourself. Toxic fumes can come from self cleaning ovens, over heated non-stick coating, fireplaces and lots of other places - like, if someone has been painting near the quail or something.

 

[ctquail]

they where under the heat source, no injuries, it looks like they died in there sleep or just fell asleep and died the last to just kinda feel asleep and didn't wake up. I do reuse gallon milk tea jugs to refill there water maybe soap? My set up is off the ground in a building the pen is about 3x12 ft no toxic fumes that i can think of no paint or anything i clean the poo from under the pin about every 2 weeks

 

[DK newbie]

The two that were still alive, were they near each other when you found them or just randomly placed among the dead birds?
In general, I don't think soap is very dangerous, I think you'd almost have to feed them with it to get 50 birds to die from it.. But maybe I underestimate your soap.

 

[ctquail]

yea they where all there together and i thought they were all dead but the two started moving a little when i started getting the dead ones. i dont think it was the soap just a guess. do you think they could have got something from the birds that i hatched before

 

[ctquail]

we do have rats could they have given all my quail something i'm not sure what rats carry but could they maybe have contaminated the food or water