UNBELIEVABLE quail deaths- drowning!!!I have no idea what to do next

[texaschickmama]

See if you can find one of the waterers that has the really small lip. I have some of them I know Little Giant makes them. They are perfect. I don't have to put rocks (no room anyway) or marbles or anything in there.

 

[becky3086]

Ok, sometimes when you have a waterer on a papertowel especially in the corner, the corner of the papertowel gets flipped up into the water, which then wicks out all over the paper towel and that is how it gets all wet. It has happened to me before. Sorry for your loss.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

I'm so sorry! I've also learned the hard way. Lesson #1 - don't put the waterer in the corner. Put it more in the middle. I've lost quail and button quail because they got wedged (and don't ask me how) between the wall and the waterer. Like they can't just back up??? And lesson #2 - use a quail waterer, it has a smaller lip. Even with that, I put little pebbles in there and there's no way they can get inside.

I think every now and then we get a dumb hatch. I hatched tons before I had it happen to me and the others were just fine. Who woulda thought.

 

[AHappychick]

I do use only quail waterers from little giant and the second time it was filled to the brim with pebbles. the paper towel did not wick I checked that first and had shavings over the corners to keep that from happening. I have been observing them and they seem to go into these drinking freenzies (dont know why never seen it before) and I think that is how it happened although for the life of me I cant figure out why or how all 28 birds would get soaked head to toe.

anyway the waterer is elevated and I have my eye on them so far so good.

 

[monarc23]

I just find it odd. I dont use pebbles, i put nothing in their water.


My set up is like this and it works extremely well for me...so im seriously wondering if you just have a "dumb hatch" as said lol because honestly never ever ever had this happen and i dont "go by the books" with pebbles marbles in the water and keeping it in themiddle.

My set up:
("c"'s are corners, "M"s is the middle )

I never use paper towels as ive found no reason to use them, I use aspen bedding and make sure that the quail waterer is always on the top of the aspen with no obvious shavings that may get kicked up and wick into the water. The waterer and the feeder are about 5 inches from the sides and about i'd say probably also about 5 inches from the corners.

Nothing in the waterers, and just a simple alluminum round feeder. Simple set up and i never have problems. The reason I put nothing in the water is I learned early on as long as you keep the water from getting warm they wont commune near it. Never had a problem. And yep if the water is in the corner they do make a mess, but i've still never lost any even when that happened. just had wet aspen.
That's what i love about using shavings, they get wet but as long as you have it about 3 inches thick with shavings if the waterer starts draining the birds arent soaked.

 

[Ricky Crawford]

Not that it matters now that you changed it, but you said the hole was toward the slight upslope. If it is enough unlevel, this would allow water to run out, The hole needs to be on the low side, so the water level goes over the hole and stops the water flowing out.

 

[MandyH]

After reading thru all the posts, I was gonna say the SAME thing the last poster already said. You want the hole on the lover side so the water gets above the hole and shuts off the flow. That could very well be what has killed them all, the waterer will glug, glug, glug til empty since the hole was higher thatn the water level.