Why are my quail dying?

[BYC-user-174785]

I moved my Gambel's Quail and Valley Quail inside for the winter. Last week I noticed my Gambel quail male was looking really sad and he appeared much skinnier. You can see that from the pictures below of him. He died the next day which left me with a trio of Gambel's Quail left. When I was feeding the quail today, I noticed one of the Gambel hens was sitting in the corner and she looks sick. Do any of you possibly know what could be happening to them? Is it worms? Please let me know what medicine I should give her and if I should be giving me other quail something to keep them from getting sick. Also, is it okay that my quail will not be on wire during the winter?
Thanks in advance,
Blue Creek Farm

 

[TheWeeBee]

For stressed and ill birds, the first thing you should do is give them some heat. Do you have a heat lamp? Ceramic would be preferable since there's no light to disrupt their cycle. Sometimes all they need to recuperate from a mild illness is proper warmth and good nutrition.

 

[Tammy N]

Very pretty birds Im new to these birds and learning but maybe some pumpkin if you are organic i do nto know what to use for them if not i am sorry .

Pumpkin does works how soon after the move did they start feeling ill ?

 

[TwoCrows]

If your quail have not been wormed within the last year, than this is the first thing to suspect as the possible cause of death. They need to be wormed once if not twice a year with a good chemical wormer. If you practice good hygiene in the pen year round, and the quail are not crowded in, you can get away with worming once a year. Intestinal worms consume the feed that the birds eat, and the bird slowly dies of starvation.

Unfortunately, natural products like garlic or pumpkin will not take care of infestation. You can use them as a good treat, which is healthy for them, but it is advised to use chemical wormers to take care of an infestation.

The most common of worm is the Round Worm in the intestine. You can use Wazine, which you can get at most feed stores to take care of this type of worm. 1 ounce of Wazine to 1 gallon of water for one full day. This will paralyze the worms and the birds will poop them out.

10 to 12 days later, you can either reworm with Wazine, or move on to liquid Safeguard goat wormer which is put in the feed. (The Round Worm eggs that do not get expelled are going to hatch in this time, so you will need to reworm.) Safeguard kills most other types of worms in the quail's body.

Most likely this is what you are dealing with and it is advised to start worming outdoor quail on a regular basis.

No, it will not harm your quail to be on a solid floor, however you will need to be extra clean during this time. You might want to put down some sort of bedding such as wood shavings or grass hay to help absorb poop for a cleaner environment for the quail and easier clean up.

 

[BYC-user-174785]

Thanks for all of your help.
I will be sure to do that and let you know how it worked out.

 

[TheWeeBee]

TCR: Would using food-grade diatomaceous earth in their food work for worming birds?

 

[TwoCrows]

There is debate out there as to whether or not DE, when wet, works internally. DE is microscopically sharp when dry and does cut the exoskeleton of mites externally. However when DE gets wet, such as going thru the intestinal tract, it tends to clump and stick together, which can cause it's ability to be loosely sharp, so it is possibly thought. I do not trust it to work internally, but this is just my opinion. The only way to really know would be to test for worms before using DE, and then retest after using it for several months daily as to whether or not it destroyed any worms.

 

[TheWeeBee]

Ah, gotcha. The clumping issue hadn't occurred to me and yes, definitely a good idea to test before and after a worming treatment!

Do quail tend to get intestinal parasites in the wild? I would imagine that most animals have ways of dealing with these sort of things on their own (ie, finding something appropriate to ingest to rid themselves of it).

 

[TwoCrows]

Absolutely they do carry around worms. All creatures do and some animals do die from being over loaded. I once picked up a wild horse out west here, from a wild horse round up, many years ago. This horse was so loaded with worms, he nearly died. Very emmanciated looking as well. Took many rounds of worming over a long period to rid this horse of his worms. I am sure birds are no different.

But all this being said, quail can be more suseptable to excessive worms in captivity as wild quail do not hang around in the same 10 square feet their entire lives like our captive ones. So the concentration of worms is much higher for them compared to their wild quail cousins.

 

[BYC-user-174785]

Sadly our Gambel's quail hen passed away today...
I gave them Wazine and I had to give the hen the Safeguard Goat Wormer in her food because she kept getting worse.
But at least the other birds will be wormed and none of the other birds look sick.