Prolapsed vent from bigger eggs?

abufish

Hatching
Apr 21, 2018
6
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9
I have 7 female quails and no male. They are 9.5 weeks old now and one of them has been laying bigger than normal eggs for a week (really big, about 50% bigger than the quail eggs from supermarket).

Yesterday one of them showed a big red vent and looks like prolapsed vent pictures (for chickens) from Google search. I cleaned it, applied some honey and gently pushed it back.

Today its bottom seems normal now, but I'm still concerned, I suspected this quail laid these big eggs and it is also pretty heavy for such a young age. Some online articles said if chickens are laying at a young age, or if they are fat, they are more likely to develop prolapsed vent. So I'm wondering if it is overweight.

Do I need to reduce the protein in their diet? They are still on the Gamebird Starter which is 30% protein.

Thank you~
 
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She’s been laying for 13 days. Here’s the photo of the eggs we collected. Notice the very big ones on top...
 
I wonder if it would be helpful to stop her laying somehow, maybe limit light to give her a chance to heal? Most quail start laying smaller eggs and then work up to larger eggs, so it's strange that she's starting with such big eggs.

Have you opened them to see if they might be double yolks?
 
Thank you! I think it makes sense to reduce laying for her. Will move their coop to the shade help? Or just try separate her into the garage? Will the other quails attack her when we move her back? We haven’t check if they are double yolk yet, will check it tomorrow.

One egg we collected today weighs 21gram. That’s really big for such a young age. Ouch.
 
I would try the shade first because if you separate them it's sometimes dicey to reintroduce and they really prefer to be in groups.

Generally quail are fed free choice, and a lot of people feed them high protein throughout their lives. Reducing protein may slow the growth of the bird, but I don't think it will reduce the size of the eggs. I would actually not want to cut the bird's growth when she is laying such huge eggs.
 

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