Coturnix quail death - prolapsed vent? Parasites? (Graphic)

[streetmutt]

They seem to be acting like normal quail but it's hard for me too observe them a ton because I'm keeping them covered to prevent egg laying and stress.

They've been on medicated feed and had wazine in their water for last 12 hours or so. I moved their carrier outside to a shady porch this morning because they were getting a little stinky. Quincy the roo is crowing so he's in good spirits. Everyone is eating and drinking.

They mostly seem confused that I've stuck them in a dim carrier. I figure I'll monitor over the next 24 hours and then scrub their pen and put them back out if I don't see any more episodes.

Here is one of the most bizarre things to me. Here is the video of Quesadilla just seconds after I stopped filming the first clip. Like it never even happened. They were all acting like this 95% of the time:

[VIDEO]

 

[Chickety Charcoal]

How long have you had the quail? They have never acted this way before?

I sometimes see this type of thing in my 4 week old quail, although they don't wobble quite as much. They are super active, then stop and get sleepy-looking, then pick up again. Since mine are only 4 weeks old and never been on ground or in contact with other birds, I wouldn't think it was parasites and just normal behavior. I am curious what other long time quail keepers would think...

 

[streetmutt]

How long have you had the quail? They have never acted this way before?

I sometimes see this type of thing in my 4 week old quail, although they don't wobble quite as much. They are super active, then stop and get sleepy-looking, then pick up again. Since mine are only 4 weeks old and never been on ground or in contact with other birds, I wouldn't think it was parasites and just normal behavior. I am curious what other long time quail keepers would think...

These are 8-week old quail that I've had for 6 weeks or so. They don't have contact with ground but I do use pine shavings instead of wire. The shavings are cleaned out completely once a week, as are their sand boxes.

I clean their waterer a with ACV and any food not touched in 12 hours is tossed (quail don't like cauliflower ... Learning lol).

Sometimes I feed them bugs from my garden, so that's a possible infection source. They get fed diatoms to keep their gut healthy. Perhaps I need to just deworm them more often with the real stuff?

 

[Quail Jailer]

In the absence of any corroborating symptoms, I say they're napping.

I wish I could see them smell them and touch them, but still...

I think and hope you're overreacting.

 

[streetmutt]

What kind of smell or feel should I be looking for?

They smell quaily and feel like plump quail. (I feel encouraged to joke because they have been very normal today)

Oddly enough the two that weren't being lethargic were the trimmer ones (Quincy and Quistine). One of my chicken guru friends said they might be too fat and the one that died likely died of heat stroke since she was plump.

But I have much fatter and older quail (I'm working on it, but dang they are so cute and beg for food), and no one is doing the standing nap wobble.

 

[Sill]

What kind of smell or feel should I be looking for?

They smell quaily and feel like plump quail. (I feel encouraged to joke because they have been very normal today)

Oddly enough the two that weren't being lethargic were the trimmer ones (Quincy and Quistine). One of my chicken guru friends said they might be too fat and the one that died likely died of heat stroke since she was plump.

But I have much fatter and older quail (I'm working on it, but dang they are so cute and beg for food), and no one is doing the standing nap wobble.

If the rest of your quail, especially the other plump ones, are not panting then it probably was not heat stroke. They can acclimate to quite a bit of heat. I live in AZ and my quail cages get into the 90s everyday in summer. They pant, but cool themselves until they are not panting in pans of water and just keep laying eggs, usually in the heat of the day. The heat does make them drowsy, but I've not seen any of mine get wobbly. My current quail are all young too, 15 weeks.

 

[Quail Jailer]

What kind of smell or feel should I be looking for?

They smell quaily and feel like plump quail. (I feel encouraged to joke because they have been very normal today)

Oddly enough the two that weren't being lethargic were the trimmer ones (Quincy and Quistine). One of my chicken guru friends said they might be too fat and the one that died likely died of heat stroke since she was plump.

But I have much fatter and older quail (I'm working on it, but dang they are so cute and beg for food), and no one is doing the standing nap wobble.

Anything that isn't the normal. not really one of those things you can teach....as far as the one that died, trust me that happens, DC and I discussed it a month or two ago, he believes like I do that their cardiac system is near as fragile as their brains (they lose their marbles easy).
And every now and again you're gonna get one of those. Seems to me it happens more frequently with younger birds, which correlates because if they have a weak pump (heart) they just won't last long.

 

[streetmutt]

I put them in their cleaned pen this morning. I was starting to feel bad for them being cooped up in a dark cat carrier, and they seemed happy. I've been monitoring them every few hours. Everyone seems good so far. Thanks for the advice everyone! Let's hope they stay healthy!

 

[dc3085]

Since you are experimenting with diet I thought this might be helpful. Use CTRL+F on your key board to bring up the word search bar and search for the symptoms you see that way. Spoiler alert it is a paranoia inducing article heavy on scientific language. Vitamin deficiency may or many not have anything to do with what you are/were seeing but knowing what deficiencies are common might come in handy your sustainable diet quest.

That said keep up the monitoring. that wobbly bird in the video is odd. That is one of those "abnormal" behaviors QJ was referring to. These things are quite redundant day in day out with their behavior so it's pretty easy to see when something is up.

How did their feces look before you began treatment?

 

[streetmutt]

Thanks for the link. DC!

I don't know if this could be something with the diet/nutritional imbalance just yet. They are still on a lot of commercial chick feed — and it's only been two weeks since I started feeding more than just a handful of the duckweed (right now 4-5 birds share about 2 cups of compressed duckweed daily; those same birds share about 2 cups of chick feed daily, plus getting things like sprouts). The chick feed they get now represents about 75% of what they were getting before, so they haven't lost much in the way of calories or complete nutrition. My plan was to actually keep them at the same commercial feed rate and only add in the duckweed and then start changing the ratios, but I scaled the feed back a little bit because they seem pretty fat and I was worried about how fat they are.

I plan to keep them at this 50/50 ratio for a few more weeks before I start trying to wean them over (slowly of course; the idea is to do the 50/50 for a month, then go to a 60/40 for a few weeks ... once I get to an 80/20, I'll probably keep them there to monitor and make sure everything is looking good for a month or so before starting to eliminate the chick feed). Plus, I still have some experimenting left to do with sprouts (some sprouts they just won't eat — like wheat grass and chia, both of which were going to be nutritional heavyweights that I now need to find substitutes for) and my mealworm population isn't sufficient yet either.

Feces appeared unremarkable. I looked but never really saw anything that screamed "there's a problem here." Now, keep in mind, being new to quail means I could have definitely missed something because really, quail poop all looks alike to me. Now talk to me about horse poop, and I can spot an issue in a heartbeat.