Baby coturnix hatched 2 days early

[Bexnlola]

This baby hatched on day 14 & was unable to stand as its head kept going between its legs & it was summersaulting around the incubator. I popped a tiny neck brace on it & today it is standing & trying to eat. I don’t know if it’s wry neck as it’s head stays down constantly almost like it’s neck is broken, I’ve had wild birds in the past with broken necks & I know they can make a full recovery. I’ve blended the quail crumbs & mixed them in to a paste, baby is taking this very eagerly. Any advice to make its recovery any better? The parents are my own quail & have all the correct foods & vitamins in their water once per week.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Day 14 with a really warm incubator isn’t unheard of, I’ve had normal chicks hatch on day 15 with a 100F incubator. Sounds like wry neck or some other developmental issue, birds can survive but often grow slower and don’t compete well with normal birds (get bullied). There is a big difference between a broken neck and a misshapen neck due to musculature/bone injury or malformation. Your ‘broken necked birds’ are likely window collision survivors that have sprained something, displaced a disc in their spines, got a concussion or otherwise injured themselves and can be back on their wings in hours to weeks with rest and care, a true broken neck is usually fatal in most vertebrate species without significant medical intervention or at least will leave the victim paralyzed from the neck down, if the critter can move/breath it isn’t a broken neck! Cause can be genetic, nutritional or just how they were sitting in the egg or even shipping trauma on shipped eggs, etc.

 

[Bexnlola]

Day 14 with a really warm incubator isn’t unheard of, I’ve had normal chicks hatch on day 15 with a 100F incubator. Sounds like wry neck or some other developmental issue, birds can survive but often grow slower and don’t compete well with normal birds (get bullied). There is a big difference between a broken neck and a misshapen neck due to musculature/bone injury or malformation. Your ‘broken necked birds’ are likely window collision survivors that have sprained something, displaced a disc in their spines, got a concussion or otherwise injured themselves and can be back on their wings in hours to weeks with rest and care, a true broken neck is usually fatal in most vertebrate species without significant medical intervention or at least will leave the victim paralyzed from the neck down, if the critter can move/breath it isn’t a broken neck! Cause can be genetic, nutritional or just how they were sitting in the egg or even shipping trauma on shipped eggs, etc.

Thanks for the reply it’s doing a lot better now, it can hold it’s head up really well so I’m very optimistic. I’ve tried putting in some friends for it the smaller ones but wow it’s very sassy & has actually bullied them, it’s like an angry bumble bee. It imprinted on my 7yr old granddaughter she sits next to the incubator & talks to it when it peeps.
The birds I was talking about had all been pulled from their nests by corvids. They were x rayed in the vets I worked at, I was a wildlife rehabber. They were unable to walk & took quite a while to recover but a lot of them survived & went free. This little guy has stopped rolling around now & is self feeding now so fingers crossed it will be ok as it’s unbelievably cute & spicy it wants to live.