is my new quail sick

[muttsmutt]

hello i have got new quail today. this is my first quail, i wanted quail to keep as pet. i may buy more quail if all goes well with this one.

i fear bird may be sick but i cannot be sure if these are real symptom.
i got quail from a bird marketplace, from a lady who breeds different poultry. she is beautiful cinnamon bird.
very calm bird. if i move my hand slowly to her, i can touch her. she has this bored expression.
i fear she may be sick because she just sits there, on bottom of cage. sometimes closes eyes. she looks around, but doesn't move much. just rummages through wood shavings to get a good spot.
hasn't eaten or drink yet. she sometimes stretch neck and yawn. and shiver a bit at times. head and wings aren't droopy. i cannot tell you about stool, i cannot see it.

she is in temporary cage, until the large cage she will be on the bottom of, arrives. she has wood shavings, a water dish, and a food dish where i placed some fresh lettuce and wheat semolina, at the moment.

 

[muttsmutt]

i would appreciate if you have good links for me where i can find what food quail would prefer, i will go buy tomorrow.

 

[muttsmutt]

it seems she may be sunbathing. she kicks her legs to the side, and ruffles shavings around her. then she stretches her legs and fluffs up. sun falls where she is.
she also rummages through wood shaving. i guess she look for food, but when i try to give her lettuce from hand, she take a part off and throw it away?

 

[GrandmaBird]

You do not say what type of quail you have? I also wonder what your locations is as it seams like you are having a hard time asking questions or getting the point across.
Anyway, I think you need to buy game bird crumbles and feed them to her as well as be sure she can and does drink fresh water. You can pick her up and dip her beak in the water to show her where it is. Same with the food dish, or just tap your finger close to it like with chicks, she needs to learn where it is but you must feed her the correct food and semolina is not a correct food and lettuce has no nutritional value so is a waste of time feeding it to her. You can try hard boiled chicken, quail, or other poultry eggs crushed and put in to her dish, but get her the correct food now!. She most certainly needs better food. It will also take her a few days to get used to her new environment. Let us know if we can be of further help and good luck!

 

[muttsmutt]

You do not say what type of quail you have? I also wonder what your locations is as it seams like you are having a hard time asking questions or getting the point across.
Anyway, I think you need to buy game bird crumbles and feed them to her as well as be sure she can and does drink fresh water. You can pick her up and dip her beak in the water to show her where it is. Same with the food dish, or just tap your finger close to it like with chicks, she needs to learn where it is but you must feed her the correct food and semolina is not a correct food and lettuce has no nutritional value so is a waste of time feeding it to her. You can try hard boiled chicken, quail, or other poultry eggs crushed and put in to her dish, but get her the correct food now!. She most certainly needs better food. It will also take her a few days to get used to her new environment. Let us know if we can be of further help and good luck!

oh i am sorry, how silly of me to forget something so basic. it is a common quail.
i'm from romania, it is in eastern europe.
i am not very sure what game bird crumbles are, or what they should look like. if i try to translate that, it translates it literally, it is very silly. if you can show me what it looks like and what kind of store sell it it will be much easier to find even if i cannot translate. i will hard boil her some eggs tomorrow [it is bed time now], and hopefully see your reply to get her the correct game bird crumbles.
she has seen where the water is, she dipped her own beak in it. i don't know if she drinked yet. what is a most suitable water dish?

 

[GrandmaBird]

Gane bird crumbles are a amashed up pelet food for pheasant, ducks, turkey and quail and other bigger birds. It is high in protein and is not medicated. I do not know if you can get the same brands there but it is like this:

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...3&sa=X&ei=IAQGVab5AYGcgwShhoOgCA&ved=0CGwQuiQ

of course there are lots of different brands/makers. I use Nutrena and Purina makes one here in the USA. Best of luck with her as she does need this better food.
As long as the water is kept clean any dish will work that is not to deep as they can get a chill if they get wet and die. The can use bottle type water bottles like used for rabbits or hamsters like this:

http://www.kvsupply.com/lixit-wide-...ZDpnub9XFoYnbtgo1mPbYWFzGFn9Co6BwJRoC42Hw_wcB

I hope you can use the links to the photos if you have trouble ask and I will see if I can find good photos for you.

Good Luck!

 

[muttsmutt]

Gane bird crumbles are a amashed up pelet food for pheasant, ducks, turkey and quail and other bigger birds. It is high in protein and is not medicated. I do not know if you can get the same brands there but it is like this:

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...3&sa=X&ei=IAQGVab5AYGcgwShhoOgCA&ved=0CGwQuiQ

of course there are lots of different brands/makers. I use Nutrena and Purina makes one here in the USA. Best of luck with her as she does need this better food.
As long as the water is kept clean any dish will work that is not to deep as they can get a chill if they get wet and die. The can use bottle type water bottles like used for rabbits or hamsters like this:

http://www.kvsupply.com/lixit-wide-...ZDpnub9XFoYnbtgo1mPbYWFzGFn9Co6BwJRoC42Hw_wcB

I hope you can use the links to the photos if you have trouble ask and I will see if I can find good photos for you.

Good Luck!

thank you for links, i will look for gamebird feed tomorrow, as i didn't get out today. i gave bird thing called "malai" here. it is powdered corn. it looks like this. http://www.cumparaieftin.ro/userfiles/poze_produse/Supermarket/88228549.jpg it is used to cook food called polenta, and commonly fed here to poultry birds, my grandmother feeds chickens this, as staple food. i have also boiled quail egg and fed it mashed up in dish, together with canary seed. she ate it all up and had to refill the dish. i didn't put extra egg the second time.
how often should i give her boiled quail egg?
i didn't know hamster bottles were good! i will give her one of that once she is moved in new cage. now, i taped several small, shallow dishes on top of other, to make one tall, but shallow at top, dish for water, and one for food. this way she cannot get the shavings into the food and water so easily. she drank water a lot too. it is shallow, and reaches to her chest, it is about 1,5cm deep, she cannot get wet, only if she climb in it. she did, but even then she wasn't too wet.
she seems to be much better today. more skittish, because she isn't shocked from transport anymore. i let her wander around my room, very cute bird. she moves very sneaky-like, is that okay?

as cage will be soon ready to accomodate her and my cockatiel, i begin to think about what i should place for her. i think i should get her one big hide, like a huge hamster house. i will place some straw around the house. in rest, it will be newspaper to cover the bottom, and some wood shaving on top, so she has what to scratch around in. i will observe which perch cockatiel spends most time on and place a little bridge under, so droppings fall on that, to minimise the amount of dropping that quail will walk on. what else should i get for quail to spend time with?
oh, i will also get some sand to put in one large dish she can bathe in and eat for digestion.

 

[muttsmutt]

Gane bird crumbles are a amashed up pelet food for pheasant, ducks, turkey and quail and other bigger birds. It is high in protein and is not medicated. I do not know if you can get the same brands there but it is like this:

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...3&sa=X&ei=IAQGVab5AYGcgwShhoOgCA&ved=0CGwQuiQ

of course there are lots of different brands/makers. I use Nutrena and Purina makes one here in the USA. Best of luck with her as she does need this better food.
As long as the water is kept clean any dish will work that is not to deep as they can get a chill if they get wet and die. The can use bottle type water bottles like used for rabbits or hamsters like this:

http://www.kvsupply.com/lixit-wide-...ZDpnub9XFoYnbtgo1mPbYWFzGFn9Co6BwJRoC42Hw_wcB

I hope you can use the links to the photos if you have trouble ask and I will see if I can find good photos for you.

Good Luck!

thank you for links, i will look for gamebird feed tomorrow, as i didn't get out today. i gave bird thing called "malai" here. it is powdered corn.[here i wanted to link you picture but it said i cannot do that and erased all the long post i wrote.......] it is used to cook food called polenta, and commonly fed here to poultry birds, my grandmother feeds chickens this, as staple food. i have also boiled quail egg and fed it mashed up in dish, together with canary seed. she ate it all up and had to refill the dish. i didn't put extra egg the second time.
how often should i give her boiled quail egg?
i didn't know hamster bottles were good! i will give her one of that once she is moved in new cage. now, i taped several small, shallow dishes on top of other, to make one tall, but shallow at top, dish for water, and one for food. this way she cannot get the shavings into the food and water so easily. she drank water a lot too. it is shallow, and reaches to her chest, it is about 1,5cm deep, she cannot get wet, only if she climb in it. she did, but even then she wasn't too wet.
she seems to be much better today. more skittish, because she isn't shocked from transport anymore. i let her wander around my room, very cute bird. she moves very sneaky-like, is that okay?

as cage will be soon ready to accomodate her and my cockatiel, i begin to think about what i should place for her. i think i should get her one big hide, like a huge hamster house. i will place some straw around the house. in rest, it will be newspaper to cover the bottom, and some wood shaving on top, so she has what to scratch. and bridge under perch where cockatiel will spend most time, so droppings fall on bridge not on floor where quail is.
she will have a large dish with sand, for bathe and digestion.
what else should i get her for the large cage? dimensions are 120cm long, 80cm wide, 120cm tall.

 

[muttsmutt]

quail gets upset when it gets dark and tries to get out of cage, she ends up rubbing her beak against the wall in her attempts. how do i help her calm down?

 

[GrandmaBird]

Okay muttmutt I will try to help as much as I can. First the "malia" sounds like just ground corn which is not enough for quail. You can feed her egg everyday until you get the better food, look for protein 20-28% (16-18 if not laying) on the package, here we buy it at farm stores, where you would buy horse, cattle or other farm animal feed. As stated before it is used for turkeys and ducks but is not whole grain it is crumbled pieces like pellets, if they are too large you can smash them up a bit. Add half pet finch seed to the crumbles. The canary seed is different from the finch, it should have red millet, canary grass seed, white proso millet, niger seed and rape seed. You can feed her veggies to help until you get better feed and she will like them daily once she eats her crumbles. You can feed her broccoli, spinach, cooked carrots, peas, any veggie that is soft you can try, apple without the seeds and skin, even banana and orange. I also chop up sunflower seeds and give them as a treat once every couple weeks.
They do move very cautiously sneaky like it is because they are scared. Remember that danger comes from above them so anything that is above her is or could be a threat.
Be sure to show her where the food and water are if you change the cage. It sounds like she knows where they are now so that is good. I cover my birds at night, I keep one pair a male and female who hatch their own eggs and I then give the chicks away. Your bird might be happier if you get it a mate. Do you know if it is male or female?
The cage sound great and they dont really play like other cage pet birds so the hiding spaces are important and so is the food and water. I really think she would love a mate. You can use a tiny stuffed toy for now to see if she calms down.

Best of luck and let us know how everything is going.