Sick female quail

[dimi]

Hi, All,

I need an advice. One of my female quail is acting a bit strange - sitting down most of the times and closing her eyes from time to time, as if sleepy. Looks like she is sick.
All other quail - there are total of 4 females and 1 male in that cage seem fine.

Any idea and advice on what to do?

Thanks,
Dimi

 

[peanut1981]

I recommend googling causes for those symptoms. However do you have constant light on them? If you do, remember it increases stress

 

[dimi]

Constant light only from 7am to 8pm. Nothing changed in their environment either (feed, light, amount of them, etc).
I've seen one egg without the shell and one egg that was smashed right before the symptoms, so might be related to calcium. I have increased their calcium intake today since morning.

 

[peanut1981]

Increase electrolytes to. Possible dehydration!

 

[SeptemberQuail]

Just closing her eyes and looking sleepy isn't enough to fully determine what may be wrong unless she's an old quail and just napping during the day.
I think you should physically inspect her just in-case. I'm no expert on diseases or sicknesses since I'm still learning as well, but I think checking her up and posting what's wrong/what you found will allow someone with the knowledge to be able to distinguish if anything is wrong with her and if any treatment is needed or not. ^.^"

Feel her crop - Is it empty? Hard? Watery?
Is her nose clear from any blockage/musucs?
Has she lost any weight? (Does she feel lighter than the other quails when you pick her up?)
Do you know when the last time she laid her egg was?
What's her poop like? (you'll need to stick around and wait for her to poop to see, eheh)
Has she been eating and drinking normally?
Have these guys been wormed?

I had a quail who just looked sleepy all the time and a few hours before she passed away, I picked her up and found out that she had lost weight. After this, I've become much more cautious around any abnormal symptoms they display. Quail have a tendency to only reveal illnesses when it gets worse because in the wild, they don't want to be left behind.

 

[dc3085]

Eggbound hens will also act this way.

 

[TwoCrows]

Sounds like she could be egg bound. Read this article on egg binding. This article pertains to all poultry, so follow this advice for quail as well....https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/egg-binding-symptoms-treatment-and-prevention

Use your pinky finger for an exam. If you can rule out egg binding, then you can move on to other possibilities such as worms, cocci, crop issues or some bacterial infection.

 

[Amossy Itozya]

What kind of bacterial disses affecting quails

 

[TwoCrows]

All kinds of bacterial infections out there that effect quail...respiratory, enteritis's, infections from internal laying or from ascites, heart, lungs, infections from puncture wounds, Staph infections, organ infections, brain swelling, etc...

Lots of them.

 

[dimi]

Thanks all for the ideas.
That quail seems fine now.

I removed a male from that cage, because most of females had bold spots on their back, so I figured the male might be overmating them. The strange part is that the male also has a bold spot on his back as well.

I am changing the configuration of the pens for them.
Currently I have the following setup:
two rabbit cages on top of each other. The top one is divided into two:

top: 4females+1male | 4 females (1male removed)
bottom: 5 females+1male

I am looking to move one of the females from the top to the bottom cage to even them out.
so it will look like this:
top: 7 females + 1 male
bottom: 6 females + 1 male

As I am looking to hatch some eggs from them, do you think the male/female ratio is fine for this setup or the fertility rate might not be enough?

Thanks for all your suggestions. I am reading on egg boundness now.