Why did my quail chick die?

[Shontel Moore]

Hey everyone,

I just hatched a brood of quail chicks last Saturday. Everything seemed fine, and up until now they were all bouncing happy quail chicks, full of energy and life. About an hour and a half ago I went to check up on them and all was well, everyone was eating, drinking and playing. However, about 30 minutes ago, I went back to make sure the water was still full and everyone was okay when I noticed one wasn't moving around too much. I thought he was sleeping, but on closer inspection, his eyes were wide open. I reached down to nudge his bottom with a finger, and he started flopping around, unable to lift his head or move, except for this crazy almost seizure-like flopping back and forth, spinning his head around in circles. I quickly separated him from the others, carefully checked him for injuries, and tried to get him to eat or drink, making sure he stayed warm all the while. After less than ten minutes of this odd behaviour, he locked up into a ball, eyes open but not blinking, and I'm fairly certain he's dead. I don't understand what happened, or how he died so quickly. Is this a disease, or gene's gone wild? Or did he just give up on life? Is this contagious? Please help!

 

[CascadiaRiver]

What kind of Quail is it? It could be some kind of thing like wry neck or he could have just been trampled by accident or just not strong enough to survive (that yearly 10% sadly)

 

[Shontel Moore]

What kind of Quail is it? It could be some kind of thing like wry neck or he could have just been trampled by accident or just not strong enough to survive (that yearly 10% sadly)

They're Coturnix. It looked a lot like wry neck, but like I said, he was perfectly fine less than an hour before, and was dead in a matter of minutes after I found him acting strangely. I didn't think wry neck could act that fast. It's possible he was trampled, but terrible genetics is also pretty likely in my mind (I didn't get the eggs from the most reliable breeder). I suppose I won't know, I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't spread to the rest of them.

 

[CascadiaRiver]

If it hasn't affected the rest of them yet I'd say you're probably good to go