Cat Attacked my Button Quail

[Alaska & Dakota]

Early this morning my cat got a hold of my button quail. The cat caught the quail on the side of the body, under the wing. It bled a decent amount and then stopped, the wound is a decent size on her tiny body and you can see down to what looks like a layer of muscle or fat (?). Like i said, it stopped bleeding, and she’s eating and drinking and walking with a slight limp. will she be okay? will it heal by itself? should i disinfect it ? if so how? at this point i’m more worried about it getting infected than anything else since cat bites tend to infect easily. any advice is useful.

 

[Abriana]

Can you post pictures? They would be very helpful.

 

[Sara L]

Maybe try spraying some Vetricyn on it? That has helped heal my quail's injuries in the past, but none of mine were attacked by a cat. Maybe try posting in the Injuries forum rather than quail, might get a faster/better response.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/emergencies-diseases-injuries-and-cures.10/

 

[cosmosue]

You know I always was told a cat bite or scratch for a bird was lethal even by a vet, who treated a Quaker parrot of mine many years ago and the parrot died.

So 2 years ago one of my cats who is mostly feral outside got a baby cardinal out of a nest and ran off with it, it was a bit chaotic and I ran after the cat who I then told to drop the baby and he did, in front of a neighbors door.

I grabbed the baby, and I took it inside, and I cleaned it’s wound on the wing with water and antibacterial cleanser like I would my own skin. It was a small bite mark but the wing was injured, there wasn’t a lot of blood. I crushed one of my left over antibiotics after researching what would be used if brought to a vet, I don’t have an avian vet I am my own avian vet, and the vet I do use - uses google.

So I think what’s the point of me trying to dish out all this money to treat a bird at a normal vet who uses google and knows less than I do, I crush the pill up into dust, I mix it with wet cat food, I do this for a week, and in between that I also hand fed it wet cat food every few hours like I would feed a baby parrot bird formula with a syringe to fill its crop. Only I used wet cat food instead as I read it’s better for wild birds.

I’m not telling you to follow my advice or feed it this, what I’m saying is how I personally saved the bird after the cat got it. It’s still alive 2 years later in fact he’s in the kitchen. He has a special diet, and he’s on 3 different vitamins. I’m trying to get his color to come out and his feathers to properly grow out. So I keep trying different things.

My point is they say a cat is fatal but it isn’t always fatal, as I’ve proved in saving this baby cardinal who was only 10-12 days old.

My advice is to treat it as you would any wound, and keep in mind that since it was a cat it probably does have a better chance to become fatal. If you have some kind of bird antibiotic maybe you can use that or google what a vet would use which is what I did and I’m not going to say here what that was as I am not a vet, nor do I remember what it was I used. It did however work. At least in this case.

I can’t promise it will work for anyone else.

Just do your best. That’s all we can do after all I hope your quail makes it ok!!

 

[cosmosue]

Oh I also kept him warm until all his feathers came out just like you would keep any baby warm that didn’t have his feathers yet. (But I would keep him warm anyway if he did have his feathers until he was healed if he seemed to need the heat is what I mean) I used a my rock salt lamp as at the time I was not raising chicks. At this day I would use my brooder. So he lived in a cat carrier with a warm salt lamp for a week or two and ate cat food til I weaned him to bird food.... yes it was a strange thing what we did lol but hey he’s alive anyway and the kids love him and he sings beautiful songs during the day time and demands I cover him every night at 8pm (yes he demands it by squeaking at me until I do it if I forget!)

 

[AniaOnion]

One of the dangers with cat bites and scratches is that their teeth and claws have a lot of bacteria on them from their high protein diets. It's almost like shoving rotting meat into a wound. It's where the idea of cat scratch fever comes from.

Disinfecting the wound is a good idea. I think very basic polysporin is considered safe for quail, just make sure there are no anti-inflammatory or analgesics in it, since the dosage would be WAY off for a tiny thing like a button quail.

The fact that he is eating and drinking suggests he is not in shock which is very good.

Smelling the wound, and the birds breath to see if you smell bowel in either or blood on the breath would suggest an internal injury.

Other than that, I think other people will probably have better suggestions. I would also consider maybe a quail safe plant that's higher in iron to help with blood loss?