Questions about rehabilitating baby quail

[gobukk]

Hello all,

We posted about this baby quail who had issues getting out of the egg & cannot stand. Most people would have put it down but we really couldn't...and thanks to folks who suggested tube and cup therapy, we are doing all of those. And this guy is responding very well so far. He (or she?) even gained some weight last few days!

We have a few more questions on how to further improve this one's overall condition.

1. Is it ok to keep this one (now 7 days old) in the incubator? We have been keeping him there since he should be separated from others and temperature & humidity control is somewhat easier in the incubator. But I wonder the fan noise from the incubator would bother him and i can imagine the air circulation might be bad inside the incubator. Any thoughts on this?

2. Since he can't really walk or sit balanced by himself, we tape down his toes to the floor, femur together to correct internal rotation as well as tibia. With this support plus a "chair" behind his back, he looks a lot more comfortable and balanced. With this setup, he can have easy access to food but I didn't put water in front because I'm afraid it might drown...So the question is, how often/how much water should I be giving him? So far we've been giving water whatever amount he wants to drink every 3 hours or less (yes we have been dedicating a lot of time for this guy's life...also thanks to work from home situation). How much water/how often is needed for a rehabilitating baby quail? Or any suggestion on full water access for this situation without drown hazzard? Attached picture of the current setup. We think we'll keep the raised food bowl setup so it prevents falling to the front.

3. I learned that quails need light to find food and eat. So we've been leaving the lights on for 24/7 but I wonder for how long we should be doing this. What is their recommended sleep schedule as they grow up?

Again, thank you so much for your advice in advance!

 

[HappyDuckie]

@Kiki

 

[Kiki]

@Kiki

 

[FloorCandy]

If this chick can’t walk or stand at 7 days, I think this is a losing fight. Even the most bad off I’ve had was up by day 4.

young chicks don’t care if the light is on all the time in my experience, the turning on and off seems to be what freaks them out, not the light actually being on. I have red bulbs and regular white bulbs for brooding and the chicks are fine with either. Some people claim white light freaks them out, I haven’t seen this, and I only buy a red bulb if it’s on sale.

As far as living in the incubator, that’s harder on the incubator than the chick, I doubt they care about noise. However your bator is picking up feather and food particles and kicking them around in its electronics. Raising chicks in there will affect the life of the overall machine.

When caring for struggling chicks I give them water every 2 hours, but in your case I would make some sort of water cup or something for it, but add rocks so it can’t submerge it’s head. Tape the water dish or cup down so they can’t knock it over.

 

[gobukk]

If this chick can’t walk or stand at 7 days, I think this is a losing fight. Even the most bad off I’ve had was up by day 4.

young chicks don’t care if the light is on all the time in my experience, the turning on and off seems to be what freaks them out, not the light actually being on. I have red bulbs and regular white bulbs for brooding and the chicks are fine with either. Some people claim white light freaks them out, I haven’t seen this, and I only buy a red bulb if it’s on sale.

As far as living in the incubator, that’s harder on the incubator than the chick, I doubt they care about noise. However your bator is picking up feather and food particles and kicking them around in its electronics. Raising chicks in there will affect the life of the overall machine.

When caring for struggling chicks I give them water every 2 hours, but in your case I would make some sort of water cup or something for it, but add rocks so it can’t submerge it’s head. Tape the water dish or cup down so they can’t knock it over.

Thank you for your reply. We also see that this is a difficult case. He is now 2 weeks old, we didnt know what to do for the first 3-4 days so it's been about 10 days since we started getting him upright. He definitely has strength and range of motion on legs but doesn't know how to balance. Or doesn't even try to balance is a better description. When he's not taped, he wants to go backwards and then put his head to the floor to eventually lie down on his back. He acts like he is quite comfortable that way as if he's a cat...and of course, for all those reasons he is pretty small for a 2-wk old bird compare to his sibling.

Anyway, we will be accepting him as how he is and do whatever we can, as long as he eats, drinks, and enjoys my q-tip rubs.

Per your suggestion, we made a new setup with food and water bowls attached near him. Also instead of taping him on a chair, we're now trying to teach him to keep his head up all the time by letting his legs kinda "hang down" and toes touch the floor. We got inspires by chicken wheelchair designs and tried to make a smaller stationary version. He does try really hard to get out of it and in that process he gets wet a littlebit. I don't think he'll drown, but should I still remove the water bowl so he doesn't get cold?

And when/if he becomes more stable and less hyper, we want to make a wheelchair so he can move around. Do you have any suggestions on any current and/or future setups for this guy?

Thank you!

 

[Pandaisy]

In my opinion a wheelchair for a chicken or quail is just cruel. How is it supposed to take dust bathes or scratch around in the dirt? I had an older quail with gout and it got to the point where she couldn't walk anymore and do the things she loved. I took her to the vet the next day and had her humanly euthanized. I see no point in letting animals suffer when they are cleary in distress and with no chance of improving.

 

[Kiki]

In my opinion a wheelchair for a chicken or quail is just cruel. How is it supposed to take dust bathes or scratch around in the dirt? I had an older quail with gout and it got to the point where she couldn't walk anymore and do the things she loved. I took her to the vet the next day and had her humanly euthanized. I see no point in letting animals suffer when they are cleary in distress and with no chance of improving.

I agree. This quail should have been out out of its misery long ago.

 

[FloorCandy]

Thank you for your reply. We also see that this is a difficult case. He is now 2 weeks old, we didnt know what to do for the first 3-4 days so it's been about 10 days since we started getting him upright. He definitely has strength and range of motion on legs but doesn't know how to balance. Or doesn't even try to balance is a better description. When he's not taped, he wants to go backwards and then put his head to the floor to eventually lie down on his back. He acts like he is quite comfortable that way as if he's a cat...and of course, for all those reasons he is pretty small for a 2-wk old bird compare to his sibling.

Anyway, we will be accepting him as how he is and do whatever we can, as long as he eats, drinks, and enjoys my q-tip rubs.

Per your suggestion, we made a new setup with food and water bowls attached near him. Also instead of taping him on a chair, we're now trying to teach him to keep his head up all the time by letting his legs kinda "hang down" and toes touch the floor. We got inspires by chicken wheelchair designs and tried to make a smaller stationary version. He does try really hard to get out of it and in that process he gets wet a littlebit. I don't think he'll drown, but should I still remove the water bowl so he doesn't get cold?

And when/if he becomes more stable and less hyper, we want to make a wheelchair so he can move around. Do you have any suggestions on any current and/or future setups for this guy?

Thank you!

Repeatedly falling backward is a sign of torticolis (sp?) sometimes this can be improved with vitamin supplements like vitamin e. I have one who started falling over at several weeks old, and then soon couldn’t even stand. I started vitamin e therapy and it took several weeks to see real improvement, and it’s been months and I still break vitamin e caps into the water, but I’ve recently been able to stop the 2x per day great experience of squeezing capsules into her mouth. She’s wobbly on her feet, but gets around ok. She’s with a male and a couple other hen from her hatch, and the male treats her like his gross ugly sister, he won’t mate with her. He knows there’s something wrong inside her.

It gets to be a real chore to deal with this long term. As far as the water, I’m not sure. If it doesn’t get soaked and it’s in a warm brooder it will probably be fine, but chicks like that often have internal issues which will continue to cause problems going forward. If you wake up one day and it’s dead, don’t blame the water or yourself, it’s just what happens with chicks who don’t thrive right away.

 

[Kiki]

Head off style. Quickly.

 

[Quailobsessed]

There are cases where things can improve on their own. A while ago, I had a three week old quail chick who had crossed legs. I tried to fix it with several types of braces, but none of them helped at all. I ended up fixing it by holding her (with her legs in place) a lot for a couple of days. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but she just seemed to get stronger each day. You wouldn't even know it happened now. I had another quail chick who suddenly developed a bad limp. I never found out what was wrong, because it went away on it's own not too long after. This is not to say that they all turn out this way. I had another quail chick with splayed leg that I couldn't fix and, unfortunately, failed to thrive. It can be hard to know what the right thing to do in situations like this is, but only you can decide what to do for this chick.