help!! first-time quail owner with 1 chick

[yearofhiss]

hi, i'm new to this forum and this seems like the right place to post this. i don't know much about quail so sorry in advance if i seem to not understand something.

my parents incubated 110 quail eggs (idk what breed they are, the eggs all looked like coturnix ones but about half of the chicks are light yellow, not coturnix colored) in an incubator designed for 70 eggs. they hatched around day 16-17 and looked like they were doing great in the incubator but it looked really crowded (duh! they put way too many eggs inside) but my parents said we can't take them out yet, it needs to stay closed for 72 hours. so we left them alone until 5 were trampled to death. then my parents took the hatched chicks out.

we don't have an actual brood, so we just put them in a cardboard box lined with corrugated cardboard on the bottom and some kind of heater blasting air from outside the box. a lot of stuff happened but basically, out of the 80-90 chicks that hatched, only 2 are still alive.

so right now the temperature in the box is around 96-100 degrees with a heating pad underneath and the heater still outside of it. the two chicks left are one yellow and one brown. the brown one seems to be doing better. both were very active this morning, eating crumbles (i smashed them until it was the consistency of cornmeal and i tapped with my finger on the food/shiny coins to teach them to eat), drinking water and running around. it's afternoon now and they're more lethargic but still occasionally drinking water and eating. the yellow one keeps lying down and not moving but sometimes the brown one tries to lift him up, then it gets up for a bit and might eat/drink.

i'm just really scared that they might die because we lost so many and i really don't want them to die. do you think they can survive like this? is there anything else i can do to make them feel the most comfortable? the bottom of the box is lined with newspaper right now.

Here is a short video of the chicks/my makeshift brood setup.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzgKMD1aVB1laTVfV1B1eFpyZ2M/view?usp=sharing

 

[Kiki]

Sounds like you left them in the bator way too long and you might be over heating them with a heating pad and heat lamp.

 

[Kiki]

Hatching Quail Eggs & Brooding Chicks

 

[yearofhiss]

Sounds like you left them in the bator way too long and you might be over heating them with a heating pad and heat lamp.

thank you. i actually don't have a heat lamp. should i turn down the heater a bit? or remove the heating pad? i'm afraid that they might get too cold inside because that's what happened yesterday and killed most of them (with only the heater, no heating pad). what temperature should they be at? they seemed cold yesterday at 95 degrees.

 

[yearofhiss]

i feel like they shouldn't be too hot bc they still stick around the warm side of the box (towards the heater). so idk whats wrong.

 

[yearofhiss]

still need help. the yellow one is very weak and the brown one is less active.

 

[Binki]

Hello, you need a heating lamp, please go and buy one for $20 bucks at Petsmart, etc. Proper heat is crucial to chick survival.

You guys really messed this up, no offense, but it's the truth. Almost 100 animals were born to suffer and die when it could have been prevented with some more research and prep beforehand :/

What are you feeding them? Please check the protein percentage, what is it? Quail need game bird feed with a higher percentage of protein than chicken feed.... That could be another cause of mass death and leads to cannabilism :O

 

[Binki]

If they're not eating or drinking, you can try feeding them a slurry of their feed mixed with water to try and pep them up enough to hopefully bounce back - Tropican baby bird food would be better for more intense nutrition, that's at petsmart.

You can use a syringe that doesn't have a needle, or an eyedropper or even a straw that you dip into the feed slurry and stick your finger on the other end to hold a few drops of liquid in there to put a drop or two at the corner of their beak - this should make them swallow and take in a lot of that wet food at the corner of their beak.

This should happen every half an hour so they get steady food and water and most chicks should bounce back within several hours but again, they will only survive with proper heat and feed.

You have to go slow with this method, it takes patience, but hopefully they will soon look to the syringe to eat from as many have in the past, then I thicken it up until they eat and drink on their own.

 

[Binki]

Also chicks are very susceptible to drafts which the "heater blasting air" could be contributing to

 

[yearofhiss]

If they're not eating or drinking, you can try feeding them a slurry of their feed mixed with water to try and pep them up enough to hopefully bounce back - Tropican baby bird food would be better for more intense nutrition, that's at petsmart.

You can use a syringe that doesn't have a needle, or an eyedropper or even a straw that you dip into the feed slurry and stick your finger on the other end to hold a few drops of liquid in there to put a drop or two at the corner of their beak - this should make them swallow and take in a lot of that wet food at the corner of their beak.

This should happen every half an hour so they get steady good and water and most chicks should bounce back within several hours but again, they will only survive with proper heat and feed.

You have to go slow with this method, it takes patience, but hopefully they will soon look to the syringe to eat from as many have in the past, then I thicken it up until they eat and drink on their own.

thank you so much for the replies. the yellow one died so it is just the brown one now. i told my parents about getting a heat lamp, especially because they just ordered 100 more eggs so i guess we're not stopping anytime soon, but they keep saying that this one quail doesn't matter and they don't care if it dies and they're definitely not getting a heat lamp until the next batch hatches in a few weeks. i'm the only one that cares about this one chick in my house i guess. i took the setup into my room. the temperature is 95-98 degrees with the heating pad and heater.

the chick is eating and drinking well and seems okay. it keeps peeping when i dont have my hand in the box, i think it misses the yellow one. it's 11:30pm here and i'm about to go to sleep. i will update tomorrow morning, hopefully it survives the night. will it be okay with no light at night? or should i keep a dim light?