Sick female button quail

[AlyssaJane22]

Hi, friends,

My old lady is sick, and I'm hoping there is something I can do to help her, or at least make her more comfortable. Here are some details which may or may not be important context (you can skip to the bottom for symptoms)

Age: We're not sure of her exact age, but we've had her (and her mate, and their former third roommate who lives in the cage nextdoor) for about 2 years now. Ethel, the lady in question, was already laying an egg a day when we got her, while her buddy Lucy didn't start laying for at least a month after we got them, so our estimate is that Ethel was the oldest of the three (Manfred, the rooster, didn't get his full mature coloring until we'd had them for a few months). Ethel stopped producing eggs two months ago, but we assumed this was due to her age and the fact that we'd been keeping the room darker for the winter months to encourage them to take a break from laying. We could have been wrong about this.

Conditions: Both cages are 2x3.5, pine shavings for flooring, and have two birds apiece in them. They are both set up with lots of foliage to hide under, so we generally get our most sustained view of them when they're out of the cage while we clean it. We change out the cages and clean everything off once a week. Today was cleaning day, which is how we discovered Ethel's alarming condition. She has been coming out of hiding every time I refill their food and change the water, so I hadn't noticed any odd behavior previous to this.

Symptoms: The first thing we noticed was that she is standing puffed up, and when she's not bothered for a few minutes, she closes her eyes and seems to doze off standing up.
-She is having trouble walking--when she's calm, she seems to get along just fine, though slowly, but when she is startled, she sort of...flops around like she's drunk
-When I scooped her up to take her out to clean the cage, she was MUCH more docile than is typical
-Perhaps most concerning: her lower abdomen is hard as a rock and swollen. It doesn't FEEL like an egg shaped lump, but I have never had one of our quail get egg bound, so I'm not 100% sure I know what I'm looking for. If she is egg bound, I have no idea how long it might have been going on, as she has not been laying regularly for probably the last two months. Can extreme constipation look similar to being egg bound? I did notice a bit of messy poo around her vent opening.

Promising things: She is still SUPER excited about meal worm treats, and had been picking at the food bowl. She has also been drinking.

Current things I am trying as of this morning: I just made up some hardboiled eggs that I was going to add some olive oil to, as I have read that this can be helpful if she is just super constipated. I have also chopped up some steamed broccoli into small bits for some calcium, and refilled their calcium dust bath, and was going to crush up the egg shells from the hard boiled eggs to put out for them as an added calcium supplement, as this has been advice given for egg bound birds. I was also thinking I might rub some olive oil around the cloacae as lubricant for either potentially egg bound or potentially constipated conditions. I have also filled their water container with an electrolyte/probiotic mix.
I also filled a tall glass container with boiling water and shoved it inside the cut off leg of a pair of fleece leggings--it's in the corner of their cage as an added heat source, and I've also raised the general temperature of the room to the upper 70s. I filled a second large mason jar with boiling water and put cheesecloth over the lid to add some moisture to their air without creating a death trap.
I am definitely interested if any of these current strategies I have in mind are likely to do more harm than good.

Vet care: We don't have an avian vet near by, and the only vet in our area that handles "exotic" pets doesn't have any experience with button quail. Regardless, neither of them are open on the weekends, and I'm worried our girl won't make it through the night without some sort of intervention.

Advice?: I am feeling so heartbroken and guilty that maybe she's been feeling off for a few days now, and we didn't notice sooner. Would it be worth trying to soak her butt in warm water, or will the stress from this be more likely to do her in at this point? I don't have a working heatlamp at the moment, so I'm very hesitant to get her wet. Should I separate her from her mate? They are *VERY* bonded, and historically both have meltdowns when separated. He's been sticking right close to her all morning. My primary concern at this point is keeping her as comfortable as possible--that being said, if it sounds like there is still something I can do to save her, I am willing to try anything.

Limitations, currently, include: no heat lamp on hand; my husband has the car and is working until this evening, so no access to a car either. No access to appropriate vet. No prior experience with eggbound OR highly constipated OR naturally aging button quail.

Any advice or theories you might have would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DK newbie]

I'm sorry to hear Ethel is not well. Unfortunately I can't offer much help.. I wouldn't rule out egg binding, but it doesn't sound like a typical case to me. It sounds like you are already trying out many good solutions to whatever it is. Try googling 'chicken hard swollen abdomen' or something like that - I just did and it turns up things like 'egg peritonitis' and tumors.. Googling quail is probably useless, but most likely whatever she has is something chickens can get as well.
If her boyfriend is DEFINITELY not bothering her - and this can change from one minute to another - she'll probably be less stressed with him, but who knows - if she is constipated, a little stress might be just what she needs to get things to pass again..
Holding her abdomen in warm water is probably worth a try. It doesn't sound like she is very weak yet, so the risk of stressing her to death is minimal and the heat will likely loosen up her muscles and depending on what causes the problem, that might help. Just dry her belly with paper towels and refill the bottle with hot water in the cage afterwards, then it should be fine.
Hope you find a solution, though it doesn't sound too promising

 

[AlyssaJane22]

Thankyou, DK Newbie! I'm gonna try a warm water soak here in a few minutes. I did find an old hot water bottle heater that I've filled and wrapped in a towel and stuck inside her little nest box so that she has something warm she can get on top of for a snooze (I used to use it for muscle cramps and it holds heat nicely for a few hours)--this makes me also feel more comfortable with doing the soak, as any slightly damp feathers wont give her too much of a chill.

I did get her out and cleaned her vent area real good--she also pooped on me while I was holding her, so I would guess that constipation is NOT the most likely culprit here. The hardness in her abdomen does not seem close enough to the vent to be a bound egg, but again, I'm having a hard time translating chicken anatomy to this tiny little quail body. The swollen area is VERY firm and not egg shaped--I'd say it's about twice the size of an egg, and starts just below the bony ridge in her chest. Based on my scouring of the internet, I think the most likely culprit is Ascites (or, water belly) which can be caused from any number of things, OR a tumor . Both of these would be death sentences, and potentially slow ones at that

I'm going to keep doing the things that would help a gut infection OR being egg bound OR being constipated and hope that I'm wrong, and hope that it's treatable. I'm going to keep her warm and make sure she has a good range of tasty treats that she likes, and I'll keep her on the probiotic/electrolyte mix for the next few days to see if there's any improvement.

And her husband is being actually BIZARRELY sweet--I think he can tell she's not feeling well. He's cuddling her and bringing her meal worms, and hasn't tried to mate or physically hassle her. I will keep an eye on him, and get a back-up set up in case I decide she needs alone time. She's not gummy around the eyes or wheezy or pooping gross colors, so for the time being I am not treating this like its contagious, which I hope doesn't turn out to be a mistake.

Thank you again for the response--I feel so paralyzed everytime something goes wrong with these little buddies, as they are just SO tiny I worry that the threshold between helping and hurting is very narrow.

 

[AlyssaJane22]

Quick update: the bath encouraged her to take a big poop on my hand (loose but otherwise healthy looking, for the record), which I think is good, but didn't seem to have any effect on the abdominal lump, which is probably not so good, in terms of this being something she can just recover from on her own.

 

[DK newbie]

Usually they can't poop if they are egg bound - that's actually what kills them, not being able to get rid of their waste. So a big poop makes it less likely that she is egg bound. Ascites should feel like water - it shouldn't be hard. So I wouldn't think that's the issue either.. It's a tough one. Can you tell if there is any discoloration to her belly? I'm thinking you are either looking at a tumor or some kind of infection, but it really sounds like you should look for a vet that knows about birds - perhaps someone who usually deals with chickens, not necessarily exotic pets?