My Jumbo quail roo is injured on his backside, kind of to his left.

[DvorahChanah]

I fed them all this morning and now just checked this afternoon and found him bloody. Any ideas as to why? I also need suggestions on treatment? I separated him into his own cage, and brought him inside. Should I bath his tail end in warm, soapy water? He's alone now and is slowly cleaning off the blood so maybe I'll let him take care of that and later treat with antibiotics and/or gentian violet??

I plan on keeping him separate until his injury heals completely, then moving all the quail out of their aviary for a few hours. That evening, my plan is to put them all back. (I need to do some upgrades and rearranging anyway and yet do not like disturbing my quail unnecessarily so combining re-introducing this roo and upgrades works out.)

Possible causes to my mind anyway, but I'm only a few weeks into quails.

1. This roo slightly younger and smaller than one of the other roos.
2. I have 8 feeding ports to 20 quail. They also scratch around in their bedding for feed they've spilled but perhaps I need to bring that up to 20??
3. Too much space? I watched MyShire Farms today. He said too much space can be as much a problem as too little.

My aviary is 6 s.m. which works out to 64+ sq.f. I have 20 quail, which is 3 sq.f (+) per bird. I've read in other places that Jumbos need 3.5 sq.f. per bird. I'm not raising my quails in a CAFO system like MyShire is doing....so does that account for the difference? Are the space requirements per bird different with aviaries? Is there more or less flexiblity that with CAFOs?

Last question: Is there a relationship between aggressive behavior in roos and how much they crow? If it's one oldest roo, he's surprisingly large. He crows a lot, especially in the early morning hours. This injured roo is too young to crow yet.

 

[Kiki]

Well, I appreciate how much you care....

I watch people trying to save their dying chicken's life on the daily because it was overfed treats.

We don't start out knowing how important diet is for our birds but we learn. One way or another.

 

[Kiki]

Israel. I am usually reluctant to say so...someone inevitably makes comments. I'm a member of a group that studies the Grand Solar Minimum...and when friends of mine in Israel, not Jewish, Armenian, post about weather in Israel, he gets comments. But I'll make an exception here and see how it goes.

I don't care about any of that.
I just wanted to know to see if I was familiar with any feeds in your area and I am not but I am going to look now.

 

[Kiki]

I read somewhere here 1 T per bird. Maybe I was reading a chicken thread? How much do you recommend per quail?

3 or 4 meal worms would be plenty.

 

[Kiki]

What's your view on the space recommendations I quoted from MyShire Farms?? Do you think 20 birds in a 4X9 sq foot aviary is inviting territorial behavior and aggression??

I think Zack is nuts for cramming too may birds into a cage. He sells to make money. Big difference in what you and I keep birds for.

 

[Kiki]

Zack knows I think he's nuts too so don't worry. He's my friend and I pick at him for it.

 

[Kiki]

@muddy75 @Nabiki Come help please.

 

[Kiki]

I get it. It's just that you're not defining what a "treat" is and why it's a treat. Is a treat non-commercial food??

I found the thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-much-feed.1465441/#post-24410113 where there was speculation to feed 1 tbsp per bird but it wasn't really a recommendation. Just a guess...I took it more seriously than I should have done.

A treat is any and every thing besides the commercially made balanced crumbled feed.
If quail crumble feed isn't available then a chicken crumbled feed.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

OK, understand I have Chickens and Ducks. Most of my poultry nutrition research is regarding chickens (It's what I primarily raise, and frankly, there's more research on chickens than other fowl - feeding chickens is better studied than any other creature on the planet, even us human-types). I know a bit about ducks specifically related to Niacin needs, and dietary contributors to the development of "angel wing", particularly in very young birds. Also, they generally are recomendaed about 1% higher total fat intake than chickens. I know a bit about quail - mostly that their recommended protein levels are generally higher than the typical chicken or duck at any equivalent age category, but I couldn't (off the top of my head) tell you how their desired AA profile varies from the typical chicken's - though I couldprobably find it fast, and then explain why, based on what I understand already about various AAs.

I'm also pretty good at basic math.

So, with those undestandings, here goes. [Warning, broad generalizations here]

A "treat" is anything which is not a nutritionally complete and balanced feed. "Treats" are not inherently good or bad. There is a "thumb rule" that gets thrown around BYC a lot, that "treats" (of whatever sort) should not exceed 10% of the total chicken diet, BY WEIGHT, daily. There's another "thumb rule" that treats should be varied, so the birds don't get substantially "the same" treat each day. Both thumb rules exist to reduce the chances of dietary imbalance. And like all thumb rules, they are imperfect fits, a guide, not a guaranteed calculation. The more nutritionally dense a "treat" (or nutritionally empty), the greater the chance that 10% by weight will still result in potential imbalance.

Dried earthworms, mealworms, BSFL (black soldier fly larvae), "super grubs", BOSS (Black Oil Sunflower Seeds) and similar products are all nutritionally dense sources of protein, yes, but also fat.

Now, numbers. (Sorry)

Typically, live earthworms are given nutrtional values around 60% water, 20% protein, 13-14% fat, 6-7% "everything else". A live earthworm weighs about 1/4 g, on average.

Dried, with most of the moisture removed, they become much more nutritionally dense sources. Numbers are often given as 5%+/- water, 45% protein +/- (and its a complete protein, which is good), 28% fat+/-, and 20%+/- "everything else". Weight closer to 1/8 g.

and here is what MSU says about feeding quail. Note the lack of a number for fat, specifically. More math (trust me on this, I built a calculator).

Their BYQ "starter" is around 3.2% fat. The Finisher about 3.4% fat. The flight Starter is about 2.8% fat, finisher about 3.8% fat. Layer? 3.2% fat. For Coturnix, their recipes calculate around 3% fat starter, 3.4% finisher, 3.2% breeder. That seems a good target range, and not far off typical recommends for chickens (they are usually 3.5%+/- with exceptions for Cx).

That's our baseline. I'm goign to pick this up in the next post.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Ok, now imagine your current complete quail feed averages 23% protein, 3.4% fat (this is long enough as is, I'm not even going to get into all the other stuff). Now imagine you follow the thumb rule and add treats in the form of dried mealworms at 10% of the weight of the feed you are offering.

Now there's some disagreement. Birds are reasonably good (again, Cx excepted, and individuals vary) at balancing their energy intake, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL (important caveat). Birds are also rather good at balancing their protein intake (ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL). Sadly, they are pretty bad at balancing for an appropiriate amino acid profile - which is much more important than crude protein alone. They show similar ability to self regulate Calcium intake, and a few other things. But in this case, it doesn't help - there isn't broad enough selection to allow a bird to permit a bird to balance its own intakes.

Itr will either eat all the complete feed and all the mealworms, all the mealworms and some of the complete feed, or something inbetween. That provides our ranges.

A bird which eats 9 parts feed, 1 part mealworms has increased iots average protein intake from 23% of the diet to 25.2%, a very tiny relative improvement. On the other hand, its fat intake has gone from 3.4% of the diet to 5.56% of the diet - a very substantial increase in fat intake (and daily energy). The bird eating the regular aration of feed PLUS 1/10th the ration in mealworms is 25%/5.36% respectively - less average fat (though still a significant amount over desired) and increased its total calory intake singificantly.

As it turns out, birds don't deposit intramuscular fat well. They aren't like us. Anyone who has eaten bird and paid any attention at all knows most of the subcutaneous fat is deposited at the keel, and the inner thigh. Anyone who has butchered their own bird knows they deposit fat a third place - in the inner organ cavity, where it can compress the heart and be deposited in the liver, kidneys, etc. Where fat nodules grow suifficiently large in the liver, it becomes friable (a fancy word for "crumbly"). Crumbly livers result in ruptured blood vessels, which then leak into the inner organ cavity. Inchickens, this is called FLHS Fatty Liver Hemorragic Syndrome, and contributes to sudden poultry death. By compressing the heart, they result in reduced blood flow - higher incidence of frost bite in extremities (comb, toes, etc), greater damage during processing, and more rarely, sudden heart failure - its the poultry equivalent of COPD.

Now that's not to say fat is all bad, or that you can't deliberately design a balanced feed with a higher average fat level - but you do so by cutting carbs to reduce the total mKe (metabolizable kinetic energy) to the desired target. For the typical at home poultry owner, they have no ability to adjust the mKe of their feed, so they should be concerned with adding significant amounts of fat to the diet due to the potential for netaive health consequences.

just as you would not offer yourself a "treat" of 4-6 oz of bacon each day w/o expecting health consequences over the long term, you shold not offer your birds significan amounts of dried mealworms, Boss, etc each day unless you have designed their diet around that (in which case, its part of a recipe for a complete feed, not a treat)

and that leads me to my next post, making your own feed.