Quail lost ability to fly. Has bulge on neck

[allygibbs73]

Hello everyone
My quail Cricket is around 4 months old and has recently stopped flying. She used to jump off my hand and fly across the yard. She was in great flying shape and has strong wings as I let her fly all the time. Now she when she try's to fly off my hand she can barley open her wings and just falls, she doesn't even flap them. This also happen to one of my outdoor quail. I've always thought it was because my roo was over breeding her and she was stressed but she didn't get any better when I separated her for a week. Cricket was paired with a maturing male (he only stared breeding with her a couple weeks before I removed him in replacement with a female. From what I saw (she lives in a large cage in our kitchen so I can see her all day) he wasn't over breeding her or stressing her out. They normally just took dust baths together and hung out. When I started to see he was getting more buggy about mating I took him out, but maybe he caused the problem I'm having? Cricket is eating and drinking fine. This has been going on for a couple weeks now and last night I felt this huge bulge on her neck. Right in the middle on her throat area. It is like her neck is kinked like that. She now always rests with her head straight down looking the ground. She can pick it up, look up and around like she always has but she kinda nipped at me the other night when I was holding her like she was hurting. She's very tame and usually enjoys being handled and will fall asleep in your lap and will sometimes follow me around or come when called for mealworms haha but ever sense last night she seems fidgety and uncomfortable when I hold her. I'm really worried please let me know if you know anything about this.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Is her crop not emptying properly?

 

[DK newbie]

Yeah, from the description of the location of the bulge it sounds like you are feeling the crop. It's okay the crop is full if she's just eaten, but in the morning before the light turns on/she starts eating it should be empty. If you still feel the bulge then, something is wrong. You can try to massage the crop to get the contents to continue into her gizzard. If this doesn't work or the problem keeps reoccurring, she could have an impacted crop, sour crop or distended crop.
I have a chicken roo that seems to have distended crop - the crop is too 'loose' to push the contents into the gizzard. I'm using a 'crop bra' on him (google it) to keep the crop contents above the opening to the gizzard so it keeps draining. I used it for about 14 days first, then removed it for maybe 3 weeks, then the problem returned so now he's wearing it again.
Sour crop is a fungal infection in the crop and needs to be treated, though there are different opinions on how.
Impacted crop happens if she's eaten something that won't pass through the opening to the gizzard - it could be rocks or long pieces of grass that clump together. Giving her water and then massaging the crop contents can sometimes loosen up such clumps.