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Oh god, oh god.
My mother keeps quails.
And one pair managed to start a clutch and start sitting without my mum realising, so when she saw it, she decided to let the eggs hatch.
That was today.
I peeked in, to hear lots of noise, and saw them pecking at something in the corner. I though I saw the something twitch. On closer inspection, there was indeed a chick, twitching somewhat but utterly helpless. Now, quail chicks are pretty much precocial ordinarily, as in born with their eyes open and able to walk within minutes of birth. This one was most definitely not walking.
So, seeing as they were either ignoring the chick or pecking at it, I fished it out of the corner and brought it inside. I put it in a tub with some kitchen paper and, discovering that a desk lamp and a charging mobile phone were not enough to warm it up, sat it in my hand for a bit.
Unfortunately, this 1. perked it up considerably and 2. partially imprinted it on me. So after that, I couldn't replace it in the tub, or it tried to get back to me, and started making a cheep-cheep noise. Great, I had a baby!
It cheered up much more, until it was wriggly but still couldn't walk. Well, it tried, but it just ended up on its bum/back cycling its feet in the air. Unlike the last clutch (same father, different mother), this one doesn't have squidgy feet; it just can't walk. It got noisier and noisier so I decided to try it back with its folks. They totally ignored it. No aggression, but it may as well have been invisible.
Mum got home and came to see them. We found a second chick, this one with a big bloody mass coming out of (?) its butt. Barely alive, barely breathing. Not too good. It was very cold, so my mum tried to warm it, then I took it as my hands were warmer. We eventually got it up to a sensible temperature (whilst I had the Wriggly Chick wriggling in the other hand) and placed it in a heated sand-box with its wriggly sibling (on paper, to stop the sand sticking to the blood-bit), with chick food and water. Wriggly so far has refused all offers of water/food, which concerns me; the other one, we didn't even try. We'll have to see if either of them are still alive this evening... I hope so; Wriggly is very cute.
My mother keeps quails.
And one pair managed to start a clutch and start sitting without my mum realising, so when she saw it, she decided to let the eggs hatch.
That was today.
I peeked in, to hear lots of noise, and saw them pecking at something in the corner. I though I saw the something twitch. On closer inspection, there was indeed a chick, twitching somewhat but utterly helpless. Now, quail chicks are pretty much precocial ordinarily, as in born with their eyes open and able to walk within minutes of birth. This one was most definitely not walking.
So, seeing as they were either ignoring the chick or pecking at it, I fished it out of the corner and brought it inside. I put it in a tub with some kitchen paper and, discovering that a desk lamp and a charging mobile phone were not enough to warm it up, sat it in my hand for a bit.
Unfortunately, this 1. perked it up considerably and 2. partially imprinted it on me. So after that, I couldn't replace it in the tub, or it tried to get back to me, and started making a cheep-cheep noise. Great, I had a baby!
It cheered up much more, until it was wriggly but still couldn't walk. Well, it tried, but it just ended up on its bum/back cycling its feet in the air. Unlike the last clutch (same father, different mother), this one doesn't have squidgy feet; it just can't walk. It got noisier and noisier so I decided to try it back with its folks. They totally ignored it. No aggression, but it may as well have been invisible.
Mum got home and came to see them. We found a second chick, this one with a big bloody mass coming out of (?) its butt. Barely alive, barely breathing. Not too good. It was very cold, so my mum tried to warm it, then I took it as my hands were warmer. We eventually got it up to a sensible temperature (whilst I had the Wriggly Chick wriggling in the other hand) and placed it in a heated sand-box with its wriggly sibling (on paper, to stop the sand sticking to the blood-bit), with chick food and water. Wriggly so far has refused all offers of water/food, which concerns me; the other one, we didn't even try. We'll have to see if either of them are still alive this evening... I hope so; Wriggly is very cute.
