Baby Quail Not Eating

[Serenity06]

Hi, I'm new. I frequently use this site, but made an account just to ask this question. Earlier today my cat brought me a baby bobwhite quail that appears to be a day or 2 old, and I had some chick starter on hand so I ground it into a fine powder and sprinkled it on the towels for him, but he wouldn't eat. So, I tried adding water to make it moist. I tried crumbling a hard boiled egg yolk as mentioned in an old post. I tried make a mixture of egg and water and sugar, but I still can't get him to eat. He only drinks if I dip his beak in water. I don't think he's injured. He's lively and has a heating pad, but I'm afraid he's not gonna make it, if he won't eat and drink. What can I do?

 

[dc3085]

If he was less than 24 hours old when he was brought in, he just wasn't hungry. They live off their yolk sac the whole first day and won't usually eat much. Scatter food across the whole floor so it's like he's finding it on the ground. You can try tapping your finger like a beak to get him to imitate you and possibly pick some up.

 

[Serenity06]

I poked around with pencil and he pecked a few times, but he keeps falling asleep! Maybe he'll start to eat now. Thanks for the advice.

 

[dc3085]

Add a bit of sugar to his water (tsp per qt or something like that not a ton), or if you have pedialyte that works too. Just sometime to give him a little metabolism boost.

 

[Charlene74]

How soon after birth do they need water

 

[dc3085]

Within 30 hours. They dont need anything the first 24 hours but after that youre kind of winging it

 

[Karina26]

Hi, I'm new. I frequently use this site, but made an account just to ask this question. Earlier today my cat brought me a baby bobwhite quail that appears to be a day or 2 old, and I had some chick starter on hand so I ground it into a fine powder and sprinkled it on the towels for him, but he wouldn't eat. So, I tried adding water to make it moist. I tried crumbling a hard boiled egg yolk as mentioned in an old post. I tried make a mixture of egg and water and sugar, but I still can't get him to eat. He only drinks if I dip his beak in water. I don't think he's injured. He's lively and has a heating pad, but I'm afraid he's not gonna make it, if he won't eat and drink. What can I do?

Hi, I see this was from 6 years ago but did he survive? My quails are not eating and are all very sleepy and many of them have died. What did you do to get him to eat?

 

[Serenity06]

Hi, I see this was from 6 years ago but did he survive? My quails are not eating and are all very sleepy and many of them have died. What did you do to get him to eat?

Apologies, I see this was over a week ago but I hadn't checked the site until today. The quail did not wind up making it through the night unfortunately, he was just too weak and not lively enough to eat from the time I found him. How are yours doing now?

 

[Karina26]

I

Apologies, I see this was over a week ago but I hadn't checked the site until today. The quail did not wind up making it through the night unfortunately, he was just too weak and not lively enough to eat from the time I found him. How are yours doing now?

I had 13 quail and all but one died aswell. I think they didn't learn to eat in time and became to weak aswell and could not eat. But the surviving quail is doing very well, going on 2 weeks tomorrow.