Button quail extreme feather loss

[Marty Ranoda]

This is a sort of update from my last thread but I’m now faced with a second set of worry.
If you’ve read my last thread you’d know I recently rescued of flock of fourteen quail from a bad situation. The Japanese quail are doing AWESOME..they’ve given up on plucking and they’re nice and fluffy. the buttons? Not so much.
They’re very active and energetic but they’ve been plucked naked, almost. I bought a huge flight cage so that I can separate them, but it comes in about 11 days and I’d like to know what I can do until then.
I’ve been trying to get some feather growth with dry eggshells as a source of calcium. I have another enclosure at hand but not a separate heat lamp.. I’d like to cull the naughty birds but I don’t know if they’re old enough to be without the lamp. What should I do? Any changes I should make with their diet? They’re currently on a chick grower along with the occasional carrot, cucumber mix. Do you think this will be an issue solved with a separation? They’re housed indoors so I doubt it’s mites..

 

[JaeG]

If they are indoors they should be fine without a heat lamp.

You may need to find some food specific to quail if possible, or something with a higher protein content. Feathers are mostly protein so sometimes the plucking is caused by not having enough protein in their diet. You could grind up some puppy kibble and mix that into their feed if you can't find a product that has a higher protein content.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

I'd check for mites just in case, watch them to see if the ones with loss are being picked on, or if they're hitting something which makes them lose feathers. If I remember correctly to when I had these guys they really do need a TON of space per pair, and can't be kept in trios, so I'd guess it's them either hitting maturity or being mature and wanting their own territory, so I would monitor closely until you can separate best of luck with them!

 

[Quailobsessed]

The japanese quails should be okay without a heat lamp if they're feathered.