Coturnix crop injury?

[Ashley Hutsell]

So this morning my husband went out to check the quails and discovered a big gaping and festering wound on the right breast of one of our females. We have no clue how she got it as we only keep two females together in a rabbit hutch, and both are pretty docile and we feed them enough to prevent any fights over food (that I have seen). It's hard to know how deep the wound is and we're not sure if her crop is also injured. She's acting completely normally and eagerly eating any food we give her, she just has this big nasty open spot on her chest kind of close to her throat. We cleaned the wound, put some antibiotic ointment on her and put her in a clean transparent bin in the computer room where she would be comfortable and hopefully heal.

My question is- will quails act normally even if they're lethally injured? Would she still be eating if her crop was ruptured or there was any other internal damage? She's a $5 bird we bought for eggs and while I feel guilty about not taking her to a vet that's a lot of money for a little quail that will only live a few years anyway. Any advice on what we should do here? If she gets worse I've been eyeing the vinegar+baking soda CO2 method of euthanizing chicks but really don't want to do it and have never done a home euthanasia before.

 

[DK newbie]

No food is coming out of the hole I take it? If so, I don't think the crop is badly injured.
Quail are remarkably resilient things, so if she's behaving normally at this point, an infection is probably the biggest risk. Keeping it clean and using the antibiotic ointment is a good start.
Observe her closely the next couple of days to see if her behavior changes. A pic of the wound might help determine whether you should be worried or not.
If it comes to putting her down, simply cutting of the head is probably the fastest, most humane way to do it. There are several threads on this forum about the topic. People will even use a pair of scissors. I haven't tried though and I can see why you'd prefer the hands off method, but it really is quicker.

 

[JaeG]

I've had a male Coturnix quail recover from a really nasty head wound - he was scalped really badly. They can be horrible to each other when personalities clash, and they can go for awhile before suddenly someone goes on the attack. He recovered completely with no special treatment other than being isolated. Quail are tough so your girl should make a full recovery.

 

[Ashley Hutsell]

No food is coming out of the hole I take it? If so, I don't think the crop is badly injured.
Quail are remarkably resilient things, so if she's behaving normally at this point, an infection is probably the biggest risk. Keeping it clean and using the antibiotic ointment is a good start.
Observe her closely the next couple of days to see if her behavior changes. A pic of the wound might help determine whether you should be worried or not.
If it comes to putting her down, simply cutting of the head is probably the fastest, most humane way to do it. There are several threads on this forum about the topic. People will even use a pair of scissors. I haven't tried though and I can see why you'd prefer the hands off method, but it really is quicker.

Ok it's been a day now and she's still acting normally and trying to eat, but I'm pretty sure it's a crop injury now. There's yellow gunk coming out of the wound that wasn't before. A few hours earlier we tried putting saline+hydrogen peroxide then antibiotic cream on this. It looks nasty. Everyone says quails are super resilient and heal quickly but I don't know about this one.

 

[JaeG]

You could post in the Emergencies/Injuries section to see if some chicken people have some ideas. (That section is for all birds). Poor thing - the fact she is eating and acting normally says a lot but gunk is never good. Someone should have some info about what to use for infections.