Quails and Cocci? or something else?

[rooobz]

Hey Guys!

I have 8, 4 month quails in my hutch right now.

It's been 6 days since they started on "Vella Chicken and Duck Crumbler Starter". This has 20% protein and in Australia, this is pretty much the highest protein you're going to find.

This feed is medicated to help "strengthen" the birds' immunity to coccidi. I asked the company, and they said it is not a treatment for coccidi, it's just for strengthening one's immunity.

Since 3 days ago, I would see these traits on a handful of the quails' poops:
1: dark blackish-brown soft poop
2: reddish brown soft poop
No worms as far as I know.

None of the birds look droopy. They all have clear open eyes. Coming from a pet shop, a bunch of their feathers need to be regrown as they weren't handled the best in terms of birds-per-cage ratio.

I called the pet shop and they said the diarrhea may just be from the food change + stress - As a new owner I found it odd that the poop will be that weird colour just due to food.

This event reminded me that I need to treat my quails as they're all new and from a new source. I have bought Aristopet Poultry Wormer and it will be arriving by Monday. The Aristopet staff told me:
- Zero Withholding Days for Eggs
- Quails Can be Wormed from 4 Weeks Old
- Meat has around 5-7 Withholding days (I forgot what the bottle said)

I also have been trying to do research whether if this weird poop could be because of coccidi. I can't find much results on it despite all of my research. I'm worried that:
- I can't eat their eggs as soon as they're laying
- I can't eat their meat because of this sickness

Any help or input with this poop issue will be much appreciated!

**I hope this thread can bring some interesting conversations. Hopefully to help others in the future that may be going through similar issues also!**

 

[MGG]

Is it just some shed intestinal lining? I freaked the first time I noticed that.

 

[rooobz]

Is it just some shed intestinal lining? I freaked the first time I noticed that.

Now that i think about it, i do recall seeing something like an "elephant's trunk" under the wires but it was around 1cm long and was quite thick. I didn't know whether to pass it as a weird looking poop. I saw this 2 days ago.

Yesterday I saw a thick snotty-textured poop. It was dark reddish-brown of colour. Not wet enough that it looked like blood, but it was definitely leaning onto that side.

I'd say around 15% of their poop are like this.

 

[MGG]

Now that i think about it, i do recall seeing something like an "elephant's trunk" under the wires but it was around 1cm long and was quite thick. I didn't know whether to pass it as a weird looking poop. I saw this 2 days ago.

Yesterday I saw a thick snotty-textured poop. It was dark reddish-brown of colour. Not wet enough that it looked like blood, but it was definitely leaning onto that side.

I'd say around 15% of their poop are like this.

Can you post some pics of various poops? Are you giving them any supplements in their water? Sometimes those make runny poop

 

[rooobz]

Can you post some pics of various poops? Are you giving them any supplements in their water? Sometimes those make runny poop

Here are some photos! Most of the poop has been covered with sand - sorry about that. But the one i'm more worried most about is the last image.

 

[MGG]

Here are some photos! Most of the poop has been covered with sand - sorry about that. But the one i'm more worried most about is the last image.

@casportpony can you take a look?

 

[casportpony]

Did you know that birds have two types of poop? One is cecal, one is regular poop.
Here is an article I found:
Cecal vs regular poop.
I think this explains the ceca pretty well:
"by Wendy EN Thomas of Lessons Learned from the Flock

For those of us who have never seen the inside of a chicken, it turns out that a chicken’s anatomy is pretty darn interesting. I recently took a class where poultry anatomy was explained and although there are many interesting bits throughout a chicken’s digestive and reproductive systems, today I am going to concentrate on two tiny sacs that help with digestion.

Located at the at the ileo-colic junction (the end of the small intestine) and before the beginning of the large intestines are the cecal pouches. These little pouches or sacs are analogous to the cecum in mammals except that with chickens, there are two. (Makes sense, chickens proportionally eat a lot more fibrous material that needs to be broken down than mammals do.)"

So how do these sacs help chickens with their digestion? The main purpose of cecal pouches is to collect fibrous material from the small intestines. While this material is being held, the cecal reabsorbs as much water as possible, while at the same time fermenting and breaking down the coarse material that the chicken has eaten (twigs, fibrous materials.)

The cecal pouches then expel and empty that fermented, partially-dehydrated mess two to three times each day.

Here’s the tricky part and what you really need to know about cecal pouches. The droppings from the cecal appear much different than the normal intestinal poultry droppings. A regular normal chicken dropping is firm, green to brown in color, and had a bit of white urate deposit.

A normal cecal dropping, on the other hand, is a brown, soft, moist dropping with a strong odor. A dropping that sometimes causes some chicken owners alarm as they mistakenly think it is an indication of diarrhea and illness.

Thick, sticky, brown chicken droppings will occur on a daily basis. It’s important to identify these and recognize that they are normal dropping as a result of chicken’s having those cecal pouches."

 

[MGG]

Did you know that birds have two types of poop? One is cecal, one is regular poop.
Here is an article I found:
Cecal vs regular poop.
I think this explains the ceca pretty well:
"by Wendy EN Thomas of Lessons Learned from the Flock

For those of us who have never seen the inside of a chicken, it turns out that a chicken’s anatomy is pretty darn interesting. I recently took a class where poultry anatomy was explained and although there are many interesting bits throughout a chicken’s digestive and reproductive systems, today I am going to concentrate on two tiny sacs that help with digestion.

Located at the at the ileo-colic junction (the end of the small intestine) and before the beginning of the large intestines are the cecal pouches. These little pouches or sacs are analogous to the cecum in mammals except that with chickens, there are two. (Makes sense, chickens proportionally eat a lot more fibrous material that needs to be broken down than mammals do.)"

So how do these sacs help chickens with their digestion? The main purpose of cecal pouches is to collect fibrous material from the small intestines. While this material is being held, the cecal reabsorbs as much water as possible, while at the same time fermenting and breaking down the coarse material that the chicken has eaten (twigs, fibrous materials.)

The cecal pouches then expel and empty that fermented, partially-dehydrated mess two to three times each day.

Here’s the tricky part and what you really need to know about cecal pouches. The droppings from the cecal appear much different than the normal intestinal poultry droppings. A regular normal chicken dropping is firm, green to brown in color, and had a bit of white urate deposit.

A normal cecal dropping, on the other hand, is a brown, soft, moist dropping with a strong odor. A dropping that sometimes causes some chicken owners alarm as they mistakenly think it is an indication of diarrhea and illness.

Thick, sticky, brown chicken droppings will occur on a daily basis. It’s important to identify these and recognize that they are normal dropping as a result of chicken’s having those cecal pouches."

Thanks! I was trying to remember what those were called.

 

[rooobz]

Did you know that birds have two types of poop? One is cecal, one is regular poop.
Here is an article I found:
Cecal vs regular poop.
I think this explains the ceca pretty well:
"by Wendy EN Thomas of Lessons Learned from the Flock

For those of us who have never seen the inside of a chicken, it turns out that a chicken’s anatomy is pretty darn interesting. I recently took a class where poultry anatomy was explained and although there are many interesting bits throughout a chicken’s digestive and reproductive systems, today I am going to concentrate on two tiny sacs that help with digestion.

Located at the at the ileo-colic junction (the end of the small intestine) and before the beginning of the large intestines are the cecal pouches. These little pouches or sacs are analogous to the cecum in mammals except that with chickens, there are two. (Makes sense, chickens proportionally eat a lot more fibrous material that needs to be broken down than mammals do.)"

So how do these sacs help chickens with their digestion? The main purpose of cecal pouches is to collect fibrous material from the small intestines. While this material is being held, the cecal reabsorbs as much water as possible, while at the same time fermenting and breaking down the coarse material that the chicken has eaten (twigs, fibrous materials.)

The cecal pouches then expel and empty that fermented, partially-dehydrated mess two to three times each day.

Here’s the tricky part and what you really need to know about cecal pouches. The droppings from the cecal appear much different than the normal intestinal poultry droppings. A regular normal chicken dropping is firm, green to brown in color, and had a bit of white urate deposit.

A normal cecal dropping, on the other hand, is a brown, soft, moist dropping with a strong odor. A dropping that sometimes causes some chicken owners alarm as they mistakenly think it is an indication of diarrhea and illness.

Thick, sticky, brown chicken droppings will occur on a daily basis. It’s important to identify these and recognize that they are normal dropping as a result of chicken’s having those cecal pouches."

Wow this is very interesting. I never knew that they had 2 types of droppings. Would this classify as cecal poop? I'm more concerned as there are green coloured poops too.

 

[MGG]

Do they get any treats or water supplements?