Button Quail hasn’t laid today after a couple of months of regular laying…? I’m worried!

[Nabiki]

That's tough. Did you get the calcium citrate? The reason I keep harping on that is because the calcium absorbs into her system more quickly in that form.

If she's pooping, then she's not egg bound. Did you restrict her light? If so, it's possible that she's starting to take the break from laying that she really needs.

In my experience, calcium is very important for buttons. Even more important than it is for my coturnix. I make sure they always have finely crushed oyster shell available on the side.

Let us know how she's doing tomorrow.

 

[Carterborchers]

I crushed calcium citrate and sprinkled it on her food. Is it possible to mix 1/4 tab with a tiny bit of water and squirt it in her mouth? She’s on liquid antibiotics and pain meds for a toe that she’s going to end up losing a part of, so we’ve gotten fairly good at getting that clamped beak open long enough to get stuff in there.

She just hasn’t been doing much eating lately, and now looks smaller than her male buddy. X-rays on Friday showed a shell-less egg, but she is still pooping. Not her normal massive poops, but it’s something. She keeps going back to the water, but doesn’t seem very interested in eating. She keeps fluffing her feathers up, pacing and pecking the plexiglass, and most of her time in the corner. She did make some little

We keep her inside, and rarely have the living room lights on. She gets enough light to see, but isn’t in the dark either. The vet told me to stop epsom salt baths last week.

We’re back at the vet right now for the 3rd time getting another weight and xray to see what’s going on in there…

And it appears her body absorbed the shelless egg because nothing is in there. She’s being hospitalized in the avian ICU for at least three days to be given meds and high nutrient supplements and food. If she won’t take it on her own, they’ll force it into her somehow… I believe the vet said she also washed out the peritoneal cavity or wherever the egg would have been in case it got by us somehow. I change their bedding daily, and have been looking for evidence of anything unusual. She also didn’t see any shriveled membrane in there that would indicate the egg membrane ruptured. So…

 

[Nabiki]

Good luck. I'm sure the vet will be including calcium as part of her intake, so you probably won't need to worry about that. In the future, instead of sprinkling dust on her food, provide a dish of crushed egg shell or oyster shell on the side for her to eat as much as she wants.

 

[Carterborchers]

Just wanted to come back and let everyone know that she stayed at the vet for about a week on “superfood,” some kind of emergency, high nutrient food. I brought a bottle of calcium citrate that someone recommended, and they were crushing that and giving it to her in a small cap of food and waiting for her to eat it all (to make sure she got it down) before feeding more. The egg that was “stuck” didn’t have a shell at all, and her bones were very depleted of calcium on the X-ray. The vet said if she flew and crash landed, she’d likely break bones. Her body ended up reabsorbing that egg! They saw no evidence that it burst, no left over membrane or anything, but flushed her out and put her on stronger antibiotics, bene-bac probiotics, and more pain meds for part of one toe that turned necrotic and was black. Her partner pecked at her toe—I think he thought it was a mealworm? It got red and swollen, so I applied ointment, seemed to get better, but then died. It fell off last night, but I guess poultry “auto-amputate”… their body seals it off or something and prevents it from spreading, and then the dead part falls off naturally.

She hasn’t been happy with me forcing these meds into her mouth with a syringe, which was a challenge I got good at. So she was kicking at me when I picked her up and the toe fell on my lap and I screamed. lol. She didn’t seem to notice.

She’s been laying now for 6 days. Stronger shells. Only thing is instead of her usual 4pm laying time, it’s now around 6-7pm.

She was very thin and smaller than her “husband.” Now she’s is back to being the voluptuous queen she always was.

I’m so happy she made it! Thanks for all of your advice! I’m taking it…putting out a bowl of oyster shells so she can eat at will.

 

[Nabiki]

I'm so glad to hear how much better she's doing.