What color is normal quail poop?

[Vegetable Gardener]

As you guys may have seen my earlier posts, I did used to make my own vegetarian feed. The quails normally had green poop. I was advised to switch to the Manna Pro starter feed and I have seen improvement.

However, I am not so sure about their poop. Sometimes it's light brown (the color of the food), sometimes it's like an orange-ish brown or dark brown (is that coccidiosis?), and sometimes it's black. I have even seen dark or neon yellow sometimes. Poop is sometimes slimy, sometimes constipated. I hardly witness them pooping (I think I rarely see pee in their poop when I see it fresh).

Somebody from them likes to poop in food and water sometimes, not sure why but I just hope that my other quail don't get sick if that one is.

 

[Nabiki]

Pictures, please? The dark brown could be cecal poop. Every now and then they shed some of their intestinal lining.

 

[Vegetable Gardener]

It usually fluctuates, not sure if this is good or not, but sometimes I do see orange-ish brown poop, bright or dark yellow too sometimes. I think it usually happens later in the day (around 3 pm I think?) right now it's noon, and I change their bedding before sundown.

P.S. Today is a cloudy day.

 

[Nabiki]

That poop looks pretty normal to me. The darker ones look like cecal poop.

I do have one suggestion. Get rid of the newspaper or cover it with shavings or grippy shelf liner. The newspaper is very slick and doesn't give them good footing. They are likely to slip and end up with leg injuries.

 

[Vegetable Gardener]

@Nabiki So the poop looks like this after they go in the garden (and eat dirt). The color you said looks normal is before they eat dirt. Is there anything to be concerned about their poop, or is it fine? I know when they drink the garlic-acv water it does seem to become a better color.

Also, I do touch the newspaper before using it, it does not feel slippery to me, and it is an easy cleanup. I would keep them on just wire, but they drop a lot of food and the other ones eat that food; if I take the newspaper off, then all their food would fall down and they would not eat anything.

The bedding you suggested seems good to me, but I know it will be hard to clean, especially since I'm worried about them having or re-infecting themselves with mites, even after spraying permethrin and changing their bedding daily. Someone will definitely put a hole in it with their nose or toes, especially since I do find holes the size of beaks in their fresh bedding sometimes.

The birds' legs seem okay in terms of injury; it seems they get injured only when they try to struggle from my hands outside and fall by themselves. Not sure why some of them don't like me holding them, but they do wait for me to put them in the cage when they're outside.