Aussie Finch Forum

Hi All..Hoping someone can help..I have 5 baby silver quails..4 weeks old tomorrow.All look good but one quail falls over every 3 steeps.Has trouble getting up again & generally apears drunk as 10 men.will fall to the left & then to the right as he tries to get up.
Anyone have any ideas?
Also, 1 baby is much much lighter silver than all the others.Is there more mutations than just silver?

could be that he was born with a deformity? otherwise I'd say splayed legs. if that is so, get him onto some non-slip cupboard lining QUICK! before you have to tape his legs together!
also that could be because he/she is a White. these birds are pure white, always lighter at hatching, and the male has no bib meaning the can't be visually sexed. good luck!!

Silvers and Cinnamons come in a wide range of shades. It's just that over half are in the mid range so we don;t always notice. Could have just got the lightest genes. But. Let's hope Jay is right and you got a white. The gene is out there. I would keep this one (well actually I would keep the lot) but definately this one and breed back to opposite sex parent in about 10 months. Do keep us posted. The "drunk" does not sound good.
LML

Thanks guys..The quails are in a 4 m aviary with sand floor so thats not the problem..I have always noticed 1 was not real good on his feet but it now seems to be getting worse.Sounds more like something wrong in his brain I think..The drunk one IS NOT the whitish one & I was going to keep him/her anyway..The mother was silver,the father normal & I dont know parents history.If the white one is male it would be interesting to breed him back with mum.They are only 4 weeks old so its a bit early to tell yet.
3 babies are normal silver color..1 is lighter & the last one is much whiter/lighter than the other.The drunk one is normal silver color.
Thanks again for you ideas guys.
Chris

Dad is definately spit silver. But even then you are lucky to get such a high percentage of silver. Even if the little white one is a hen it's worth it to breed back to dad. Just more visually obvious if it's male. After all the lightening gene could come from either side or both.
LML

Can you put the dizzy one in a enclosure on its own , with food and water close to it . Maybe it needs time out to catch up , it will be easier to monitor its actions if its isolated ...hope its not anything too serious.

chris66 wrote:Thanks guys..The quails are in a 4 m aviary with sand floor so thats not the problem..I have always noticed 1 was not real good on his feet but it now seems to be getting worse.Sounds more like something wrong in his brain I think..The drunk one IS NOT the whitish one & I was going to keep him/her anyway..The mother was silver,the father normal & I dont know parents history.If the white one is male it would be interesting to breed him back with mum.They are only 4 weeks old so its a bit early to tell yet.
3 babies are normal silver color..1 is lighter & the last one is much whiter/lighter than the other.The drunk one is normal silver color.
Thanks again for you ideas guys.
Chris

Hi Chris,

your instinct that this is a neurologic problem is probably correct. Brain tumors are not highly unusual in animals and other neurologic disorders can also occur.

Another consideration would be hypoglycemia.This can cause transient loss of consciousness and signs that look like neurologic signs (seizures, muscle tremors, black outs) in some birds. High blood pressure can sometimes cause similar signs, too.

These are the things that I can think of that might cause the signs that you are seeing. I think that it is worth looking into some of these problems, since there are treatments available for several of them. Good luck with this.