Solitary chicken - need advice

[broni.jones]

hello

on friday my first ever quail chick charlie hatched (18 days after setting the eggs). rosie then hatched on sat, followed by lola on sunday. very odd hatching at such different times i thought as the eggs were set at the same time. charlie died this evening. on sunday & today he was less active than the others & sat with his beak pointed down, resting on the floor.

i am worried because i have not seen any of the chicks eat or drink. they have chick crumb in a bowl + some scattered on the floor. i have also finely ground some of the crumbs down + mixed that in with the food as well as scattering that on the floor too. thier water is in a low shallow bowl which i have seen them walk in + out of (so i know they can get to it).

any ideas why charlie died?

how can i make sure the others eat + drink/ don't die!!!????

[Egluntyne]

You might be better off asking on a quail forum Broni.

 

Try **this one**.

[broni.jones]

thank you!

rosie & lola are eating now. i have poo for proof

[Egluntyne]

Marvellous!

[Lewis]

You can try tapping at the food and then they will come over and copy you, and start eating.

It could also be worth putting some marbles into the water so that they can walk on the marbles, but not fall in the water and drown, they will also peck at the marbles if they are shiny, encouraging them to drink.

 

One last thing, Where are these photos?

[Guest]

did you find out what the problem was or did they just perk up by themselves?

[Chillicat]

Hi

As lwscott says, they may just need to be shown what to do.

I watched our two hatched chicks for hours and broody mum showed them where the food was and she picked the crumbs out of the feeder and ate with them. It was a truly amazing experience, but they do need to be taught.........perhaps you could make a beak like shape out of a piece of paper and use that to encourage them to feed. Water may be a little more difficult, so you could tempt them with a little on a spoon?

Here is Flower showing Poachy how to do it.....but it does look a bit like poo

 

 

And here's another one just because its cute! OMG, it wasn't a giant chick...how did it get that big? Sorry

 

 

Good luck..............and, yes, where are the pics, they must be eggstremely iccle