Coturnix quail looking scruffy??

[TeePants]

Hey all, it’s been a bit!

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks our quail have started looking kind of scruffy. It started with some missing feathers on one or two of their flanks. I thought maybe it was too many treats, so I’ve cut back on those, and now they look worse? I was giving them a small bowl with oyster shell, a three grain mix chicken scratch, a couple cackle berry nuggets and a very small pinch of mealworms. They sometimes also get leafy greens when we humans have salad, probably once a week or so, as well as leftover veg from our parrot.

I’ll take a picture, and I apologize for how pathetic they look. I was extra alarmed today because 2-3 of them now have what appear to be peck marks on their little heads. On closer inspection it’s all PIN FEATHERS!

Their regular food is Hudson Feeds Game Bird food. This is always available! They also have a dust bath (currently has chinchilla dust) and I often mix in food grade DE to prevent mites. I change out their bedding about once a month; there’s about 8in deep of wood chips in there. I sometimes add sweet coop PDZ but I think I forgot this time.

I know it’s been about a month since their last bedding change; I haven’t done it yet as I’ve been turning their bedding over every day and I had thought it looked clean enough & didn’t smell that it wasn’t quite time yet. I plan on doing a full change this weekend though!

We have 5 females, 1 male. They’ll be a year old in May. Their enclosure is 3ftx5ft. I will include pictures of it again also. They have hides, but maybe I could get more? I don’t want to reduce the sqft they have to run around too much.

Any help would be appreciated. Are they molting??? There’s been a ton more sun lately here in Seattle. I know our parrot exploded with feathers after the first week of sun, haha.

 

[TeePants]

Oh gosh, I’m dumb and see I made a post about this and at that time had reduced their treats too (back in Dec). They are still getting less treats, I swear! And I did see the note about the DE - it was mixed into their dust bath last time as well. Maybe I put too much in, I wasn’t sure what the ratio should be but there is definitely way more dust bath than DE when I use it.

Also; the little blond one in the bottom picture- every spot where he looks like he’s missing feathers is pin feathers. No bald spots, no scabs. I might be freaking out for no reason. Whoops.

 

[vall]

If you nix the treats completely while they're molting, the increase in protein from eating crumble only will help them feather out faster. But they may look worse before they look better.

 

[TeePants]

If you nix the treats completely while they're molting, the increase in protein from eating crumble only will help them feather out faster. But they may look worse before they look better.

Thanks! I was already only doing it a couple times a week but you’re right, they need to eat their crumble. I just feel so guilty not giving them treats, they get so excited when I come to feed them and then glare at the door afterwards when I don’t give them any!

 

[FloorCandy]

Thanks! I was already only doing it a couple times a week but you’re right, they need to eat their crumble. I just feel so guilty not giving them treats, they get so excited when I come to feed them and then glare at the door afterwards when I don’t give them any!

Mine are the same, in spring and summer I give them various stuff from the yard and garden, and now every time I touch their feeder they mob it, pushing, shoving, pecking, kicking, trying to be first to get whatever treat I just put in, but it’s winter and there are no treats, just the same pellets they always have. One is a screamer, and just walks around screaming RAAAAA, RAAAA,RAAAAAA for like 10 minutes after there’s no treats, and I have a male that screams at me for treats too, and I don’t even have to touch the feeder or open the cage, he sees me and starts screaming, I honestly think they are copying the neighbors chickens noises, it’s very unquail like, and I never heard it before.

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

I gave up adding DE. It seems to make them more scruffy.

 

[TeePants]

Mine are so quiet! Maybe it’s bc it’s such a small flock. Now that the cats stay out of my yard (I have an extremely territorial pug lol) I hardly hear them.

Poor gal has even more pin feathers today. One of the others is starting to look like she’s getting hit by a molt too- pretty soon I’m gonna have the garbage pail kids version of quail! I forgot how dramatic it is for poultry…I remember being convinced my chickens were dying every year

 

[TeePants]

No DE, no treats, just clean water and crumble. I wonder if it’s the wood chips? It’s the softwood mix from Petco; the aspen blend is always out of stock for some reason. Cleaned the coop out last week completely as it was due. They seem active at least.

I know someone who managed to do garden soil in her pen by doing it quite deep, but I can’t imagine it would stay dry enough here, even if liberally mixed with sand. I’d love to try if I didn’t think it’d stay a sodden mess here in the PNW.

They look a bit less sad but certainly not the round perfection of this other person’s quail! I have quail envy.