3 day old quail dieing in brooder

[JJMR794]

They Seriously Need More Space! Especially With It Being Bobs.... Watch Your Pheasants Close--- The Quail Will Go After Them And Can Cause Deadly Injuries To Baby Pheasants. Yes The Red Bulb Will Help, As May The Gamebird Starter. None Of Them Have Pasty Butt Do They? Watch The Pheasant Chicks For It Too!

 

[JJMR794]

As An After Thought.... I Doubt It Was Water. If So They Would Have Died Sooner Than 4 Or 5 Days---- That Sounds More Like Not Eating. As They Will Burn Off All Nutririon From The Absorbed Yolk Between Day 3 And 5 It Sounds Like An Eating Problem. Definately Place Some Shiney Coins Or Marbles And Whatnot In The Food Dishes. Do You Have Any Possible Brooder Nanies? --- You Know, An Adolescent Quail Or Chick You Can Put In There With Them To Show Them How To Eat? If So I'd Put It In With Them(use Caution Here--- Chickens Can Possibly Make The Babies Sick With An Illness That The Chick Carries, But Shows No Sign Of, Like Coryza---- Which May Or May Not Hurt Your Quail, But Would Devastate Your Pheasant Population Inside That Brooder---- Been There, Done That!)

 

[farrier!]

Quote:
WOW SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING WENT WICKED WRONG THERE! DANG THAT'S GOTTA SUCK! DID THEY EXHIBIT ANY PARTICULAR SYMPTOMS???

They seemed neurological. They start off tucking their heads a bit, then staggering, then falling onto their sides with a lot of effort and foot twitching they get up to start with. Then they lay there twitching and peeping unable to get up and die in a few hours. They seem fine zipping and eating and drinking then the staggering hits and a few hours later they die. Mine died off withing 3 days.

 

[JJMR794]

Before They Died Did They End Up With Their Heads Arched Back Over Their Wings? Legs Strait Out.

 

[oldguy]

Quote:
not mine - they weren't in that position

and as for chicks to teach them, i had 3 game chicken chicks that were about 10 or 12 days old in there from day one to day 3 and removed them for fear they were too rough and trampling them

 

[calgal98]

I'm a total newbie to all of this, but with my first flock of coturnix, there seemed to be a couple of times when there was a bit of a die off. The first was right after hatch when they were transitioning to eating and drinking. It appeared that the later hatching chicks weren't able to get with the program and died. I lost about 10 or so from a 150 hatch. The second die off was when I moved them to the grow-out pen and they would run over each other. Again, it seemed to be the weaker of the group that would end up on the floor in a flattened smatter. Since then we really haven't had any losses. I move the injured (usually the side of the head) to a less inhabited coop and they recover and do well. I've had to move to additional grow out pens as they have grown out. Other that than there has been no die off.

 

[DLS]

I am not an expert BUT I doubled my survival rate,by doing this.
I started putting terramycin (sp?) in the water . I put paper or cardboard on the floor & change it 2 x a day .for 1 week. Red bulb, no drafts,& 28% game bird starter crumbles I am now getting 85-90% survival!!!!!

 

[ctheGreat1]

Hmmm... I say no Chick Starter, No white light, and No drafts. Make sure they have enough space and enough water area per bird. All of my birds died on chick starter. Non-red light makes them peck other birds to death.

 

[john in wa]

this is just a thought. with my quail i have to grind the game bird starter so its small enough for them to eat.

 

[oldguy]

I'm the original poster / thread starter with quails dying. So let me update the thread.

The quails are about 3 to 4 weeks old now and have been out of the brooder about a week. None died after taking them out of the brooder and now i have 39 left and they all look very healthy and have grown incredibly fast.

I have pens in my barn that measure approx 7' x 30" and they are free from drafts and snake proof. And dry.

I did take the advice of someone and switched to gamebird starter but deaths had trailed of to about one bird every 2 days by the time of the switch and soon stopped altogether

Since quails in the wild do not have even chick starter, much less game starter, i don't think that was a deciding factor though i could be entirely wrong. Somehow, i don't think the birds were getting either the feed or the water or both.

Some have talked about putting down fresh paper daily to help keep things clean. I might try using white cardboard and changing it out whenever it's dirty and putting feed on that where it will show up better.

My brooder is hand made out of plywood and not the cleanest in the world. My best guess is they did not all see and eat the food.

I have an endless supply of white cardboard and that's my next improvement to test, as an aid to help keep the bottom clean and more importantly, make the food stand out.