Traumatic Quail Injury

[Lexie7]

I own 2 female Japanese quail, which are housed together. Today I went to go do my daily quail chores and realised one had nasty cuts on her stomach, pretty deep and bleeding. There were about three. I rinsed the injuries under warm water, I wrapped her up in some gauze and held her until it appeared the bleeding had calmed down. I inspected once more, one is on the surface, not very deep. The second goes pretty deep, a noticeable hole, and the third is the same but smaller. I’m not sure what these cuts have come from, they are in an open top enclosure, the cats show not interest although it’s possible one of them may have attacked her, but only her (her companion is completely unscathed). The only other option I can think of is the log in their enclosure but there are no sharp edges. Anyways, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to help hurry along her healing process, she doesn’t seem too bothered, she’s eating, talking, cleaning etc. although I want to prevent infection and keep her alive. She’s a very sweet girl and I’ll do anything. If needed I can attach images but would rather not as they appear graphic.

 

[Kiki]

Please attach clear pictures of her cuts and the cage.

 

[Kiki]

Also...do not wrap her up in anything.

 

[Lexie7]

Please attach clear pictures of her cuts and the cage.

Excuse the messy cage, I usually would clean it tomorrow.

 

[Lexie7]

Also...do not wrap her up in anything.

She isn’t wrapped up, I just held it against the wound. Sorry for any miscommunication!

 

[Nabiki]

I would think predator, but it looks like you have them inside. That means it was probably one of your cats. Their home should be completely enclosed to keep them from flying out and to keep them safe from your cats. EVERYTHING likes to eat quail.

Unless you want to take her to a vet, the best you can do is keep the cut clean, maybe put some antibacterial ointment on there to keep it from getting infected. Make sure you use one that does not have pain killer since many pain killers are toxic to birds.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Definitely puncture wounds: predator or tangling with a barbed wire fence most likely (last one is unlikely since your birds don’t have access!). I’d get her on some antibiotics asap, cat bites go septic fast, especially if deep enough to penetrate the abdomen, tetracycline or amoxicillin are fine. Topical antibiotics won’t penetrate deep enough to help. May want to house her on wire or put down a bath towel or pee pads (change 2-3) times daily to keep bedding and stuff out of the wound. Not sure on the comment about pain killers being toxic to birds, nsaids aren’t commonly found in topical medications (and at proper doses are fine in most species), lidocaine isn’t toxic as far as I know (will have to look it up), and corticosteroids aren’t toxic at proper doses or often found in non-optical topical antibiotic preparations. But on that note there isn’t a great pain reliever (in any form) for quail.