Coturnix quail runt??

[quail_mother]

Hi, my family and i have four 5-week old coturnix quail, but our white one is noticeably smaller than the others. we actually had two “runts” when they hatched, the first one had wry neck (or at least similar symptoms) so it was our main focus for the first few weeks and we didn’t pay as much attention to this one. the wry neck bird healed weeks ago and is catching up in size fast, but our white one is still small and we’re worried.

if you need it, here’s a list of all the traits about it i thought were strange
it often walks off into corners and then starts chirping loudly, clearly distressed. it seems to be unusually sensitive to being alone, so we assumed this was because it couldn’t see the other quail
the bone on its stomach is unusually sharp
it seems slightly lethargic at times
it doesn’t use the food dish as much as the others and will usually only eat off the floor of the cage
if you have any idea what might be wrong with our little guy, please let me know!

 

[FloorCandy]

Since the others are silver, it is probably a double silver. Most double silvers are blind, they tend to be smaller than normal, females seem to be top heavy particularly, and often have a wobbly gate. They feather and mature more slowly. I use a bowl for my blind birds that is meant to be a decorative desk flower pot. The top rim is more narrow than the bowl, so they have trouble knocking the food out, but can access it easily. They can’t use nipples, so they need water from cup waterers that they don’t need to push a lever or button to fill. I’ve found that their feathers are more thin, get ratty pretty fast, and they rarely groom themselves in a manner that does any good.

Here’s one of my bowls, those are normal 3 week old chicks chicks using it, they are not super big. I bought the pink ones at Christmas tree shops, and I have a shark one I bought at GameStop, I’ve seen them at target and Walmart, Kohl’s, and places like that. Usually you would put like an air fern in a tiny pot in them. They’re great for inside birds like chicks and blind birds, because they are harder to waste the food.

 

[quail_mother]

i’ll look into it. at least to me i never noticed any signs my bird could be blind, but i it’s always possible. i’m very inexperienced so i wouldn’t know.

one thing to note when it comes to your reasoning about the others being silver, is that they weren’t, as far as i know, from the same hen, i’m not sure if that makes a difference. (we also have an Italian quail that wasn’t in the picture)

 

[FloorCandy]

To get a double silver, a silver bird breeds with another silver. There’s some silver in the mix because you have silvers. It is fairly rare to have an all white Coturnix, most white birds are English white or Texas a&m, which commonly have a spot on their heads. I think less than 10% have no color at all, and that’s in a flock of all the same variety

In double silvers, often the eggs don’t develop, or they don’t hatch due to the chicks being weaker and having underlying issues, so it’s not uncommon to have just one develop, hatch, and survive.

A mating between 2 silvers has a 50% chance of being silver, 25% chance of being normal color without silver dilution, and 25% chance of being double silver (white). I hatched 3 from mail order eggs (silver) and I’ve been selectively breeding them for health and vitality. I have several very healthy ones, and they are producing healthy offspring that aren’t nearly as hard to keep alive, but all of your descriptions fit, they cry more, they have more trouble locating and eating food, they often feel safest in corners, if they can’t feel chicks close by, they think they’re alone and cry. The chest (breast) in hens is often bigger, they seem to tire easily because their legs seem a bit small for their bodies. Mine are sensitive to feeds. At first the female wasnt doing great, I coincidentally changed her food and she did much better. I don’t know what the difference was, I’ve compared the feeds but there are a lot of small differences.

 

[BirdsRDinosToo]

Your white quail is possibly a male you may want to see if you can vent sex it

 

[Quaily_Bird]

I had this happen as well, hatched 5 tiny, runty white coturnix quail that developed slowly and had health problems. Turns out they were albino! If you look at the bird's eye, does it have a reddish pupil with a blue sclera? This would mean that it is albino, or leucistic at the very least.

 

[FloorCandy]

I had this happen as well, hatched 5 tiny, runty white coturnix quail that developed slowly and had health problems. Turns out they were albino! If you look at the bird's eye, does it have a reddish pupil with a blue sclera? This would mean that it is albino, or leucistic at the very least.

The eye you described is double silver aka “partial albino”. It gives them a dark purply look. Leucism produces a white or diluted looking bird with normal colored eyes for its species or variety. The actual albinos have bright pink eyes, no blue. I’ve found that my albinos develop at normal speed are normal sized (actually they’re big) and are healthy, as long as I account for their weaker vision (they can see, but not exceptionally well, my double silvers are all or mostly blind).

Here is a pic of an albino:

and here is a double silver:

I have not culled any of my albinos yet, but the double silvers are noticeably all white meat like chicken breast color, and imo taste less gamey, but that could be my eyes fooling my tastebuds because it looks so much lighter.