Quail acting strange

[Nabiki]

Should I just keep her in that cat carrier? Will I be able to put her back in with the rest of the group with no issues if she's been gone for several days to a week? I actually just came to add another update that she is eating and drinking with no issues in the carrier.

You will have to be careful when you reintroduce her to the others. If you can, take all of the birds out, clean and rearrange their pen then put them all in at once, preferably at night. that way they wake up in completely new to them surroundings and they're a lot more likely to accept the "newcomer" without fuss.

 

[eddie_van_quailen]

You got good advice from Nabiki. I agree that you should stay the course and see if the leg improves with rest in isolation. Weight loss is hopefully from decreased mobility. Just adding on that I wouldn't rule out an infection, especially since the leg wasn't noticeably red when this all started 2 days ago. It's possible a small injury became infected, and it may get worse. But it may also get better! And I hope it does It's a good sign that she's eating & drinking.

 

[holiday hawk]

You will have to be careful when you reintroduce her to the others. If you can, take all of the birds out, clean and rearrange their pen then put them all in at once, preferably at night. that way they wake up in completely new to them surroundings and they're a lot more likely to accept the "newcomer" without fuss.

Thank you for all the advice, I'm really glad I decided to wait on culling for a couple of hours. If she does start to improve over the next week or so, would it be helpful to put the cat carrier out in the pen with everyone else and let her stay in it for a few more days? That way they can be "introduced" to her through the door on it but not beat up on her?

You got good advice from Nabiki. I agree that you should stay the course and see if the leg improves with rest in isolation. Weight loss is hopefully from decreased mobility. Just adding on that I wouldn't rule out an infection, especially since the leg wasn't noticeably red when this all started 2 days ago. It's possible a small injury became infected, and it may get worse. But it may also get better! And I hope it does It's a good sign that she's eating & drinking.

I'm actually much more optimistic after seeing her eating and drinking now that the food and water are easier to access in that carrier. When our rats quit eating and drinking was how we decided it was their time, so when I noticed how much weight she lost the other day I was thinking it might be the same from her, but she might have just struggled to get to the food with a bum leg. I wonder if that's why she showed some improvement yesterday, since we placed her by the food to get a good video of her to post on here, it might have been the most she's eaten in a while, which gave her a little bit of strength to look and act better for a little bit.