One week old quail died

[Hungarianquail]

My first loss. I had 5 chicks in the brooder. They are 1 week old tomorrow. They were all fine yesterday. Today during cleaning I found one just laying and breathing really hard. No apparent reason. They can't fly yet, so injury is not likely. The other 4 seem fine. Within 5 minutes the baby died. I have no idea why. Any guesses?

 

[le_bwah]

Sorry about your chick, that's tough. I can't tell you for certain, but I know coccidiosis can kill quickly and sometimes quietly. It may be worth keeping some Corid (Amprolium) on hand in case any of the others show symptoms. I hope someone with more experience can give you a better guess.

 

[Hungarianquail]

My local feed store has the liquid corid. How do I administer it to the babies? And can I give it to them just in case without knowing for sure if that's what it was?

 

[le_bwah]

I'd say don't treat unless you see symptoms (e.g. huddling, loss of appetite/not drinking, diarrhea, puffed up and ruffled feathers). If their brooder is very clean and they haven't been exposed to outside dirt, there's a pretty low chance it is a coccidiosis outbreak (but it can't hurt to have some Corid on hand in case they start showing symptoms). Unless more chicks are looking poorly right now, a good bet would be waiting for other members here to offer advice from experience. For now, I would keep an eye on them and make sure they have access to clean food and water.

 

[JaeG]

Quail chicks tend to be easy to hatch, but are quite delicate in that first week. By a week old you generally know which chicks are going to make it and losing the odd one is not unusual, so there is quite possibly nothing you could have done (and nothing you have done wrong). If the others are happy and healthy it's most likely it had something wrong with it which lead to it not thriving.

 

[Hungarianquail]

Quail chicks tend to be easy to hatch, but are quite delicate in that first week. By a week old you generally know which chicks are going to make it and losing the odd one is not unusual, so there is quite possibly nothing you could have done (and nothing you have done wrong). If the others are happy and healthy it's most likely it had something wrong with it which lead to it not thriving.

It's possible. One I had to help hatch because after pipping it didn't progress for a day. Of course I couldn't tell if this was the one any more, but I'd say likely. It seemed to thrive at first. But maybe inside something just wasn't strong enough. I'm watching the rest closely. So far they are all happy.

 

[mdees88]

Out of 250 quail I typically lost 1 in 20-50 in the first week. They were typically smaller than the rest of the quail (the runt). Most of them were rather lethargic before they passed. Out of those 250 I assisted 6 in hatching and 1 of those died for sure, maybe 2. It's very likely you did nothing wrong and he was just weaker than the rest or he is possibly one of the ones you assisted hatching.

 

[Hungarianquail]

Well, it's been over 36 hours and the others seem happy and healthy.