Quail with swollen toe and small cut

[MageofMist]

I have a chinese painted quail I noticed had a slight limp, even with that she was a pain to catch for a check up so it wasn't causing her mobility problems. When I finally caught her, I noticed she had a cut on her toe and it was swollen and slightly discoloured, as if infected. I gave it a wash and put some honey on it to help fight the infection, but I am wondering if there's any other stuff I could do for her or better things to put on the wound?

She is in a brooder which also acts as an isolation pen as the other quail were pecking at her injured toe. She is doing well, she is eating, drinking and preening well and is very alert and active.

 

[DK newbie]

Sounds like you are doing all the right things. As long as the swelling goes down within a few days, I don't think you should change anything - if it doesn't you might need to be a little more aggressive towards the infection.
She might start calling for the others and act very stressed - in that case, I'd get one of the others and divide the brooder in the middle with a piece of wire mesh and put a bird on each side so they can see each other but not hurt each other.

Do you have any clue why she got hurt in the first place? Something in the enclosure she could get cut on? Or did the others make the wound?

 

[MageofMist]

I looked in the pen and haven't seen anything that would cause the injury, so I think it may have been another quail that caused it. I put her brother in with her as those two were calling to one-another and he started chasing the other quail around in frustration. I am gonna be watching them to make sure he won't peck her toe, but they are dustbathing together right now and both have calmed down drastically.

 

[DK newbie]

Ohh so cute ^^ They tend to really hate being alone. And it sounds like he might be able to leave the toe alone

 

[MageofMist]

I have the brooder facing the community pen so they can all still see one-another, so once she is better there won't be any issues introducing them back again, though they are trying to get to one-another through the glass/mesh. So far so good with her brother ignoring her toe, he is picking up little bits of oyster shell grit for her and food-peeping.

 

[MageofMist]

She just laid an egg in the brooder, I was expecting her to take a few days off due to the moving and the fact she is a new layer, though provided oyster shell grit just in case.

 

[DK newbie]

She probably had the egg ready in her system - there might be one or so more that is so far along in the production line that she has no choice but to lay it, even if she is stressed from the move. After that she might take a break. Or not

 

[MageofMist]

She is STILL laying eggs, which I am glad for as it lets me know she is still in good health, but it is still quite surprising after that chase to put her in the brooder and picking her up from the brooder up to check on her toe every day. So it must not be that stressful for her which is good.

 

[DK newbie]

Yeah, that's nice
Sometimes it's hard to tell what they will react to. I work in a pet shop that has buttons. 2 of 7 didn't stop laying when we first got them, several others started again within 2 weeks. Moving them to a different room didn't cause them to stop, but 2-3 weeks after the move they all stopped and didn't lay another egg for a couple of weeks. That might have been caused by the stress of some of them being caught and sold though - but we sold some before as well without causing them to stop. The day before they resumed laying, I had put a roo with the remaining 3 hens (the roos were in a different cage) but for them to be SO happy with him that they manage to manufacture an egg in 1 day seems somewhat unlikely - they might have been right about to start anyway.