Crippled quail chick

[LVT1978]

Hi there. I'm looking for any help anyone can give me. I had a quail chick pip on Sunday morning. On Monday morning it stuck about 1/16 of an inch of it's beak out the pip hole and just stayed like that. Tuesday evening I noticed the membrane around the beak was severly dried, so I intervened a little and tore it away from the beak a tiny bit. The chick didn't seem to care, and just continued to stay there a tiny portion of beak through the hole. I thought it was dead, but learned that I shined a flashlight on the egg, or knocked on the side of my incubator it would move around a little, so I raised the humidity to try to keep it from drying out too bad and left it alone. Tuesday afternoon I saw it struggling some and assumed it stuck in a dried out membrane, so I intervened again. Come to find out, the chick was in the egg backwards. It had absorbed all the yolk, but the blood vessels in the membrane dried out, rather then being absorbed. It's legs were stuck up by it's head with it's toes curled up, I assume from it's head and legs being jammed in the small end of the egg. I didn't have the heart to dispose of it without giving it a shot first, so I got a soft cloth and put it in a corner of my hatching tray and set the chick on it. After about 3 hours I noticed it was moving its legs and able to propel itself around, however it appears to still be unable to straighten out it's feet and toes, and is unable to actually stand and walk. It has become profecient at propelling itself around the brooder once I have it there. It is defiantly eatting, though I'm not sure if it is drinking or not, though every now and then I try to assist it to get water and I 'think' it drinks when I do. I don't know what to do about it. Is there anything I can do to help it's feet and toes? Should I put it down sooner then later? It honestly seems otherwise healthy, though smaller then the other chicks. At this point am I am just waiting and watching, and assisting with water every now and then. Any advice or ideas would be greatly appriciated!

Thanks,
Larry T.

 

[TwoCrows]

Sometimes these things happen with chicks. There is not much you can do about the feet at this point, although you can try putting some nutri-drench or vitamins in the water to help strengthen the chick. Many times chicks like yours can recover and thrive. Keep an eye on him should he start to suffer.

 

[mossypath]

I found an article from one of our BYC members that I used when I found splayed leg ( mine was from improper nutrition of the parent birds I bought had been feed corn and salt ??? and did not wait long enough to collect eggs after fixing the feed ) I tried the leg splints and cleaned pasty butts and small playpens without much success. Here is a link if you want to try some of the other things https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

I now follow twocrows advice and give them a place to help stand and supplement their water and just give them a little time .

Wishing you well with your bird.

 

[TheRealTimShady]

i'd go with twocrows as well. but ihave heard of people using those pads for furniture feet, the ones with sticky on one side. putting the chicks foot on there spread out like it normally would be.

might be a shot.

 

[jbobs]

cool idea about the furnature feet!

Sometimes they come out of it on their own. I've seen chicks walking on their hocks or their ankles that just snap out of it one day. if he cannot physically get up and move around to feed and water himself, though, I would rather put him down than let him starve. If you have other healthy chicks the loss of one isn't so bad. It's when I only have a couple that I really go to town trying to fix the crippled one!

 

[LVT1978]

I do appriciate the replies. So far it is still eatting and drinking, and still seems otherwise healthy aside from the feet problem. It is able to move, and has become very proficent at it. It has even mastered climbing into the food dish with it's siblings to poop in the only reasonable place in the entire brooder. The other chicks (5 others out of 31 thanks to 5 days of shipping in cold weather) seem to have no problem with it, and the one that looks just like a duck except the beak apears to try to help it stand every now and then. They all jostle to be at the bottom of the sleeping pile, but it's different when this one does it with the cripple. It truely appears to be trying to help. Anyways, I think I am going to give Hoppy a couple more days on it's own and watch for improvement, and if there is none I think i might try the furniture feet attempt. Also, I have been adding Wild Harvest Multi-Drops to the water dish since the start. It's an 8 in 1 "High-Potency vitamin supplement for growing birds". I have made sure to strictly adhere to the directions as to ratios because anything high potency can be bad if too much is used. As a side note, the chick has become very very attached to me with all the handling, and is quite content to just sleep in my hand. I, however, am getting to old to sit on the floor with my arm draped in a 100degree brooder for hours on end while he sleeps!

This is Hoppy. His head is not bald, it was wet because he attempted to backstroke through the water dish, and his yellow feathers are so light that they disappear when wet. (There are marbles in the dish, so they can not drown.)

 

[TwoCrows]

He just may survive this ordeal. Keep up the care giving and he may turn out to be the healthiest in the bunch!