Quail dead at 2 weeks - bath dust???

[MichelleKing]

***UPDATE****
Thanks for all the great advice! I went outside with a shovel and found some good ole fashioned backyard dirt. Ground it up, took out the rocks, and put it in the dust bath. The quail aren't as excited about it...but they are definitely bathing in it!
Thanks everyone!


I hatched my first batch of quail. The hatch was super successful 10/10 eggs hatched. Babies have had no issues. They are now two weeks. The ten quail are eating 5lbs+ of gamebird food/week, go through a ton of water daily. They have two sources of food at either end of the cage and the food is always kept full.

So, I JUST yesterday added bathing dust. Lixit Chicken Bathing Dust. The quail literally dove into it and frolicked around. Then, I noticed this morning that they were pecking at it and seemed to be eating it. I left the dust baths there not thinking to remove them. Then just now I found a quail dead in the dust bath. I called Lixit and they did tell me its not supposed to be eaten by the birds, but that its just dirt.

****QUESTION*****
Do you guys think that the ingestion of the dust killed the quail OR did it die from something else?

As in, I saw more quail eating the dust as well, should I expect more dead quail?!?!

 

[le_bwah]

Did the company say they shouldn't eat the dust as in it's bad for them, or as in it's odd that they'd eat it? Chicks eat just about everything once, it's how they figure out the world. I looked Lixit up, sounds like it's mostly diatomaceous earth. Not good to breathe, but I don't think it causes issues if eaten.

 

[MichelleKing]

Did the company say they shouldn't eat the dust as in it's bad for them, or as in it's odd that they'd eat it? Chicks eat just about everything once, it's how they figure out the world. I looked Lixit up, sounds like it's mostly diatomaceous earth. Not good to breathe, but I don't think it causes issues if eaten.

Yeah she said specifically they should not eat it. I was confused by that I'll admit considering I know they do eat it occasionally....but she said when mixed with water it becomes stone.

 

[DK newbie]

For now I'd remove the dust bath, but it really shouldn't have killed the bird - even if it got an impacted crop from eating it, it should take more than a day to kill it and you should notice it behaving differently before it dies.
I'd do an autopsy of the dead bird - cut it open and look at the crop, gizzard and guts, see if you find significant amounts of dirt anywhere, or another explanation of its death.
If not - could it have boinked in its cage? I have 24 at 1½ weeks old and they are certainly testing out their wings.. I also gave them a dust bath yesterday and no one is dead today. But they actually didn't show that much interest in it.

 

[DK newbie]

Wow, becomes stone when mixed with water.. Now I'd definitely cut that bird open to see what's going on inside it.

 

[The Phantom]

Yeah she said specifically they should not eat it. I was confused by that I'll admit considering I know they do eat it occasionally....but she said when mixed with water it becomes stone.

She gave you literally gave you cement mix for your birds to fluff in???? They will always pick and eat what the fluff in. She should know that!! I would take it away and just give them play sand with dirt mixed 50/50.

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

Ok, If this stuff is mainly DE, I would be cautious. This product doesn't seem birdbath/dustbath friendly! I did almost the same thing with my first batch, (but I used a mix of play sand and DE), and everything was fine and they absolutely loved it. Other than turning my craft room into a dust mound literally overnight, all was good. I started reading up on it just out of curiosity and there is a lot of information out there that says its very bad to breathe. For people too, and it supposedly can kill birds from breathing too much of it. So I had to be the party pooper and take it from them. Still no problems in that group at this point. I replaced it with just play sand, which they also like but I can tell they liked the DE mixed in better (I think because it flings farther than just the sand ). Anyhoo, I read some more, about play sand and wouldn't you know, something said that w play sand the grains are so fine they can inhale that too and get silicosis! I need to start reading before I do anything So, once again I changed that out for some construction sand because I read that was better. It's not a real big hit. The grains are quite large compared to that niiiice play sand texture. I think I might mix some of that in anyway, at least they'll die happy , or maybe some plain old, God given dirt, like @The Phantom says! I'll bet they really like plain old dirt....

 

[MichelleKing]

Ok, If this stuff is mainly DE, I would be cautious. This product doesn't seem birdbath/dustbath friendly! I did almost the same thing with my first batch, (but I used a mix of play sand and DE), and everything was fine and they absolutely loved it. Other than turning my craft room into a dust mound literally overnight, all was good. I started reading up on it just out of curiosity and there is a lot of information out there that says its very bad to breathe. For people too, and it supposedly can kill birds from breathing too much of it. So I had to be the party pooper and take it from them. Still no problems in that group at this point. I replaced it with just play sand, which they also like but I can tell they liked the DE mixed in better (I think because it flings farther than just the sand ). Anyhoo, I read some more, about play sand and wouldn't you know, something said that w play sand the grains are so fine they can inhale that too and get silicosis! I need to start reading before I do anything So, once again I changed that out for some construction sand because I read that was better. It's not a real big hit. The grains are quite large compared to that niiiice play sand texture. I think I might mix some of that in anyway, at least they'll die happy , or maybe some plain old, God given dirt, like @The Phantom says! I'll bet they really like plain old dirt....

I like that you did all this research. I did too and I thought I was picking a great product....and then it wasnt. So maybe I will try a mix of sand and DE. But I also read that breathing DE is very dangerous. Ha, I wonder if I can just buy dirt????

 

[lomine]

That's a real bummer. I don't know why a company would even make a dust bath mix that birds aren't suppose to eat. It's like they don't know anything about chickens at all.

I would just get some construction/multi purpose sand. You could buy a plain bag of dirt too if you can't just scoop some from outside. I would avoid any that have any kind of added fertilizer or special water absorption properties.

 

[MissChick@dee]

Yeah she said specifically they should not eat it. I was confused by that I'll admit considering I know they do eat it occasionally....but she said when mixed with water it becomes stone.

Think you just answered your own question. Was it supposed to be a supplement you ADD to their dust baths??? I add some DE into my DIRT never just straight. Remove it ASAP and give them good old fashioned dirt.