Quail sudden death

[swinva4]

Hi all. This is the second time this happened to us, one of my quail suddenly died. I keep a close eye on them, checking their behavior and appearance several times a day. Background: I have outdoor quail in a tightly enclosed coop and run. The first one was about a month ago. I intruded a new hen to our hen/roo pair. After some trial and error they all started getting along. After a few weeks, the original hen just died. No visible symptoms, no changed behavior. Was fine at the morning check, dead at the afternoon. Fast forward a few months, we just introduced 4 new hens in a neutral territory and then put them all together after a bit. This unification just happened yesterday. These 4 new hens are from a different farm than the ones that died. I looked at their quail, they all looked happy and healthy. The quail that died tonight was establishing dominance, acting like a diva, eating and drinking normally. At afternoon check she seemed chill but not outrageously so, and then this evening I went out and saw she was on the brink of death. I immediately separated her, saw she had some mucus in her beak and it was a very quick process after that. Dead within 30 min.

My question is what could this be? Can quail disease kill that fast without showing significant changes? Could it have been stress from introductions? Bad genetics from this one farm? She was a Celadon coturnix, if it means anything.

And lastly, if it did happen to be a disease, what’s the best thing we can do to keep the rest of the quail safe? I removed her immediately, am removing the shavings she laid on, but she was all over that coop and run.

 

[vall]

How old are they? What are they eating? Are they laying? Poop looks normal? This doesn't scream communicable disease or stress to me. My strange deaths like this have been salpingitis, but that typically affects older quail.

 

[swinva4]

How old are they? What are they eating? Are they laying? Poop looks normal? This doesn't scream communicable disease or stress to me. My strange deaths like this have been salpingitis, but that typically affects older quail.

Great questions. When they died, they both were about 4 months old. They are eating Purina game bird layer feed. Not laying, but I figured that was due to the weather changes. For the first one, no issues in poop to my knowledge. The second one let out a watery poop yesterday but we thought that’s just because we put them in their “cleaning” crate which can stress them out. That would be the only sign of sickness we saw. That, and the small amount of mucus in her beak that I noticed while she was dying.

 

[vall]

Well, that all seems fine. If you have another death, I'd think about sending it in to your state lab for necropsy.

 

[swinva4]

Well, that all seems fine. If you have another death, I'd think about sending it in to your state lab for necropsy.

I didn’t realize that was an option, thank you!