Hi all,
As some of you may know, I recently started with quail, my first experience with poultry. Well, I have four 5 week old chicks living outside in an eglu. There are 3 males and 1 female. I also have more eggs in the inccy due to hatch on sunday. The plan was to, obviously, keep the one hen, and cull the spare boys once they reached full grown.
Anyhoo, this morning I went to feed them and noticed one of the boys looked a bit odd, the way he was holding himself. So grabbed him up and took a look. Basically his skin had been ripped open down the entire length of one side of his body, from under the wing joint to all the way down his leg, I could see all the muscle etc. exposed. I could see straight away there was nothing to do for him so I put him to sleep. I checked all round the area and could see no signs of attempted entry by any predators.
Then noticed that the hen had a bit of blood on her, caught her and took a look, she has had her primary feathers on one wing snapped off and the ends had been bleeding. Checked under her wind and she also has a tear in her skin, its about an inch in length and, again, I can see muscle underneath. Now, she is perky, drinking, eating, pooing normally, she is bright eyed. I have separated her from the remaining two boys and she is indoors. I have sprayed the area with purple equine spray which is all i have. My question is, will the gash under her wing heal on its own or does she need to be culled?
Also, does anyone have any tips on stopping feather pecking and cannibalism? If I find the culprit I will cull him but would like some advise for future reference. Also, does anyone have any suggestions for why they would start? There are only 4 of them in the eglu so I don't think its overcrowding and they have a sand bath, logs, mirrors etc. to keep them entertained. The weather has been pretty bad the last couple of days so they have been stuck in the eglu a bit but I keep the door open all the time. This seems to have occurred at night as they were fine before i went to bed last night. The males arn't showing obvious signs of dominance/sexual maturity that I can see so I don't think its that?
Thanks everyone for any advise.