Quail hen acting strange!

[mandalorian]

I'm very observant with my birds, I try to catch problems early....and I've noticed that my hen, Potato, is not quite herself.

She looks visibly uncomfortable and she's drinking lots of water, but scarcely eating...she's also standing and closing her eyes. Egg bound comes to mind, but I've never had an egg bound bird before, so I'm not sure

She has been laying eggs every day around the same time, but I haven't found an egg in the aviary today. she's a very healthy hen, she usually has a ravenous appetite for mealworms and roughage, but I can't even coax her with a juicy grub....what could be the matter?

I think it's important to mention, I just expanded my aviary by around 2 square metres and it includes a tree that could be poisonous....they've never shown interest in eating the leaves or sap before, and no one wanted to eat any when I knocked down the separating wall and let them all in the new area. Potato would often free range out with me watching around the tree, before I built the extension, so she's very familiar with it and I don't think she's eaten some....but just in case her symptoms match nothing else, I think I should mention this because it could be a clue

UPDATE:
She's doing strange, mucus like poop...

 

[mandalorian]

Any advice would be very appreciated! Can and will supply photos if needed

 

[Binki]

I'm sorry to hear that, I recently had my hen Pengu experience this for nearly three days, she's an indoor quail. She is also super dumpy like her body is going to pop and she's got a legit waddle. And she doesn't lay eggs with shells. Okay so she's a bad example to compare to hehe but she was super worrying me just last week, behaving how you're describing. She returned to her normal Pengu self - the only things I can think of is something involving one of her weird eggs (that the other girls love to eat, haha ewww) or perhaps a mouse turd got in with their hay trees I make for them and she ate it and got sickly for a few days?? We don't use poison but I can't speak for my other neighbour.

It could benefit your girl to move her to a smaller cage with a heat lamp as it helps with healing. Also you can monitor her poops and eating and drinking activities - Pengu's poops were fine, Potato poops may yield clues :O

It could very well be the possibly poisonous tree. I would confirm its danger and decide what to do. My dog has allergies and has a waterbowl outside and when it rains I have to replace the water because it's dripped off a tree above the bowl and just that exposure will flare up his allergies. Thinking of that, there's at least a chance that runoff/old leaves from last year in the ground around the tree may be affecting her. Or it could be an egg thing. Or it could have something to do with the mealworms depending on what they've been fed/raised on (so I've heard). There's been some animals that eat mealworms alive and have the worms damage their insides (so I've heard again, never happened to me) so just throwing those possibilities out there... Good luck