My baby quail keep dying...help

[rebellove79]

We hatched 15 baby quail 3 days ago and one by one they are dying. We have them in a brooder with a red heat lamp..water and turkey starter. Inside in our bathroom. No predators at all. Please help..what are we doing wrong....

 

[shesaredroan]

I've been raising chickens for 10 years, buying my chicks from the feed store. This spring I got a Hova-Bator to start hatching my own eggs or purchased eggs. With the Bator, the company I bought from, included bobwhite quail eggs. The Bator came in the mail and about 2 weeks later the eggs arrived. They said they'd send 30, but they sent 35, nice people. Last Sunday they hatched....30 of the 35. Since I am a newbie to quail raising I researched BYC. I learned I needed to put marbles or stones in the waterer, which I never needed to do for my chicks. I also learned that I needed to grind up the food, (a little too late for the 5 babies I lost before I read that info). A chemist friend gave me a small mortar & pestle which works beautifully. I use a 60 watt bulb, setting it low over the new babies, raising it as they get older. Had a friend who used a heat bulb and ended up setting her barn on fire, ACK!. Also, 10 years ago I was taught to take the chicken bitties and dip their little beaks into the water, so I did this with my bitty quail. You don't have to do it to all of them, if a few get the idea, they will teach the others how to drink. The shiny coin in the food, mentioned earlier, sounds like a good thing. Good luck to you, we are learning about quail together. Isn't BYC a wonderful resource!

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
somtimes a shiny coin set on top of the food then use your index finger to "peck" the coin it triggers something in them sometimes it takes a little while to trigger this whatever it is peck ,peck ,peck LOL

 

[Quail's Hollar Farm]

If the babies hatched with an 'unbilical' cord they will not survive more that a week after hatching. I'm not sure why, but it's an old farmer's information.

 

[Ntsees]

Here's my 2 cents. If you keep them in a container that has a similar temperature to when they hatched (not too high nor too low), there shouldn't be any problem. My suggestion is try feeding them a high protein diet because newly hatched chicks need it. If they are eating and drinking fine and still kick the bucket, then I blame it on genetics. Just my thoughts.

 

[veggiecanner]

Have you tryed feeding some finely chopped boiled egg?

 

[SavageChick]

I can only share with you what I have learned and experienced with my button quail hatchings, although years ago, I used to raise chickens. Please keep in mind that I am no expert, and I don't know what kind of quail you are raising, but here is my 2 cents worth of advice on caring for [button] quail after hatching....

1. Add a vitamin/mineral supplement to water dish. If your quail eggs were shipped, you may not know the conditions under which the breeding pair were kept. If there is a vitamin/mineral deficiency in the mating pair, any eggs produced will also lack these nutrients to hatch and develop normally. For example, a lack of Riboflavin in a breeding pair can result in chicks with leg/foot deformities. Therefore, supplementing newborn chicks with these nutrients gives them a better chance of surviving if they are lacking a particular vitamin or mineral.

2. Add probiotics to feed or water. I use PB-8, but there are many other probiotics available out there made and marketed specifically for chicks to help rid any overgrowth of bacteria that can cause them illness. Also, watch for droppings that adhere to a chick's backside and collect there into a large mass. This condition is fairly common, and it can cause constipation and illness if left untreated. You can help to eliminate it by giving a chick probiotics (orally) and gently cleaning its bottom with a Q-tip soaked in warm water (this will also help the chick to produce a bowl movement and further rid of any constipation that may be causing it weakness and/or lack of interest in feeding normally.)

3. Watch new chicks closely for signs of overheating. If they appear to be panting, laying flat or on their sides with legs stretched out away from their body for long periods, or scooting off into corners in your brooder, then the heat from your brooder lamp is too intense. On the other hand, if they are piling up on top of one another directly under the lamp, or standing high as though they are lifting their body upwards towards the heat source, then the temperature in your brooder needs to be increased. I really don't go explicitly by temp readings as much as I do how the chicks are behaving.

4. As others have stated, make sure that your starter feed is ground to almost a powder-like consistency. If the pellets are too large, they are unable to eat enough, even if it appears that they are pecking at it. Spread this feed freely all over the brooder so that they can find the food easily by simply pecking at the ground around them, rather than having them search for the food dish. They will eventually be able to recognize the food dish, but it will take them 2-3 days after hatching to do this.

5. More on feeding....you have to show them how to eat. Use your finger to poke around at the bottom of the brooder. In this manner, you are replicating the behavior of a mother hen and teaching the chicks to peck at the ground for their food. Some chicks instinctively know how to forage for feed and peck at the ground right after hatching, but others will literally starve unless you show them how to do this.

6. Observe them to see that they are finding and drinking water while in the brooder. Add bright red marbles or stones to attract them to both the feed and water dishes. If you observe them not drinking enough water - or no water at all - in the brooder, you may need to use a small dropper and dab water on the side of their beak for them to swallow. Again, like the feeding mentioned above, some chicks need to be shown how to eat and drink. It's important to dip a chick's beak into the water dish when you place them into the brooder for the first time -- this insures that the chick gets hydrated, but also teaches them where the water is located.

7. Emergency Fix: Just a warning about this, as some may find this controversial due to the fact that this remedy won't be found in website or book sources. This is information gained from a local friend who has raised pheasants for over 20 years, and I can only offer my experience with this remedy by way of stating that I believe it literally saved two of my own button quail chicks. The following is a remedy for chicks who are weak, star-gazing, walking backwards, and/or near apparent death with convulsions (seizure-like behavior) when all else has been tried....

Mix the following:
- 2 Tablespoons of filtered or distilled room-temperature water
- 2 drops of "Trace Minerals" drops (available from Whole Foods or similar health foods store, sold in a blue bottle)
- A full pinch of granulated sugar
- 2 drops of avian vitamins (or Poly Vi Sol without iron)
Use a dropper to apply to side of bird's beak, and repeat once every 30-45 minutes. I found that my two button quail began to show quick improvement within 45-60 minutes, with this solution providing them with the energy they needed to peck at food and to stand upright, eventually regaining strength to function and feed on their own within a time period of 2-4 hours..

Sorry so long, but hope this helps you somehow. There are some great folks on this board who have raised quail for years. If you can describe more of the symptoms you are noticing, they are pretty quick to get on top of it to provide you with some great advice. So, if you could observe and describe any other symptoms, please add them to your post.

 

[dc3085]

The diet you are suggesting would require quail to also be fed digestive grit for proper digestion. Please be sure to include that info when explaining a diet to other members.

Brooding for two weeks is insufficient for most climates. At two weeks old quail can niether generate sufficient body heat or retain it. Brooding for only two weeks will change their physical development. They will feather much faster but youre trading faster feathering for proper weight gain.

 

[Fat Daddy]

All baby chicks are born with a sterile gut and have to get their normal flora from the food they eat and the environment. Bad bacteria are all over the place, namely Mycoplasma (lung) and certain strains of Escherichia coli (gut). They have to have heat for about a week or two post hatching (90-100 F). Electrolytes and probiotics are good to start the chick off with to hydration and populate their intestines with good bacteria. However, as I said, bad bacteria are everywhere. It is essential to change the water 2-3 time per day (especially if you have a water tower or bowl). Also grinding up the food in a coffee grinder (magic bullet) to a very small grind (powder) using a good quality turkey or pheasant feed, powdered vitamin (violate), freeze dried mealworms, dried parrot fruit pellets, finch seed AND chlortetracycline type C (aureomycin) will usually do the trick. Continue the aureomycin granules in the feed as they transition to the outside (bad bacteria are everywhere!).

WOW! I guess I need to finish my Google PHD, because most of this is completely new to me .... Silly me, I have raised 1000's of chicks on Game bird starter and water! Of course I was always careless enough to never grind the feed EVER. Only changed their water when they are out or its dirty. Have never given a electrolyte, probiotic, powdered vitamin, mealworm of any kind, parrot pellet, finch seed, Chlortracycline, or auremycin in granules or otherwise!!! How bout we try to just keep'em warm for the first 5 or 6 weeks. Feed'em the Game bird starter that was custom developed to raise quail on. And keep clean water in front of them.... They'll almost raise them selves if we dont screw any of those three up! Save the parrot food for parrots, cat food for cats, thistle seed for finches, and all that other junk for someone silly enough to think you need any of it to raise quail!!! Maybe I just should have just said " I disagree"...... Never mind.....

 

[Kennedyksco]

This is a very older thread but i wish i knew these before i began. I went head on without knowing all these particulars i thought it was easy as chickens or whatever. I hatched 130 eggs and in the next morning more than 60 chicks were dead, a day later about 20 were dead now i read this post and i see my mistakes, i gave them feed but it was ungrinded so they probably had hard tine eating, and i noticed some chicks weren't eating at all and i had no solution for that.... And i had set the light bulb probably higher so they weren't getting enough heat.