Quail chicks dying. Swelling in neck or abdomen!!

[Sophiebale]

Hello. I would be grateful for any advice however small you may think it may be. I am trying to include everything I can think of so excuse the long post. Please take the time to get back to me with advice as I am desperate.
I recently hatched 17 quail out of about 21 eggs but seem to be losing them.
My chicks seem to be experiencing difficulties in breathing and are lethargic. I have observed some birds appearing to get better but fall I'll again later.
They also have neck or leg convulsions but most worrying of all is they seem to have growths or swellings in their neck or abdomen and watery poo on occasion. They are only 5 days old.
I have managed to get them to take sugared water off a teaspoon with a bit of added garlic but further down the line they may lose interest even in the teaspoon and eventually pass on. Also they appear to become wet. Not sure if this is from falling in the water or something else

I am worried that I potentially contaminated the whole brood as I have handled most of them to assist them with a drink off of the spoon.
There is also a possibility of it being fungal also as there were a few spillages in their set up initially which got on to their food.
They are in a plastic container at present with a heat lamp overhead in my bedroom near the window.
Please if anyone can tell me what I have done wrong or what I can do in the future? Has anybody experienced losing chicks and finding large swellings?
I'm finding this whole experience very disheartening. I'm an animal lover and have tried all I can think but am a complete novice. Many of my experienced contacts have said they tend to avoid quail for similar reasons.
What can I do to ensure a better set up? They have a drinker and I am using a shallow lid from a bolognese jar with pebbles also for water. Their food consists of a mix of foreign finch food with added dried mealworms, nijer seeds and a small amount of peanuts and orlux insect pate which we grinded to a powder. They also have mealworms. I have been using small crickets also but haven't been able to get them from pet store for 3 days. The weather has been quite hot up until today and my incubator overheated on 2 or 3 occasions and one of my eggs looked as if its shell got scorched so incubation may have unfortunately produced sick birds. I'm going to try a dry hatch next time as a few people have suggested but if I have another failure I wont be able to continue as I cant allow myself to go through the heartache of bringing these guys in the world just to fail to provide them with a quality start to life.
Many thanks for your time

 

[Marigold]

Oh dear Sophie I'm very sorry to hear that. Are they chinese painted quails or coturnix?
I have managed to hatch 3 broods of coturnix successfully and generally they're pretty tough so I can only suggest one or two things for you to consider.
Overheating as you say could be a problem and possibly might lead to respiratory problems. They feather up very quickly and its good to reduce heat during the day at least fairly fast in the first couple of weeks. Errors in incubation temperature can also affect them as you suggest. They do better without added water in the incubator until the day before hatching is due. Too much humidity early on often drowns them in shell or possibly affects development.

They're messy little things aren't they? You need to try to keep the bedding scrupulously clean and dry as damp dirty bedding can lead to disease. I would remove the water in the lid with pebbles and provide a low-level drinker with just a lip fixed to the side of the brooder. then they can't walk in it and get wet - or worse poo in the water and then drink it. I lined my brooder with a pile of washable bits of cotton cloth and carefully rolled up the top one every day leaving a clean one underneath rather than having loose bedding which got easily contaminated. Sad to say but I would remove and cull any that are obviously sick as there will be nothing you can do for them and they're likely to infect the others.

I wonder where you got the eggs from? If the chicks have lumps and and aren't lively maybe the parent birds or the eggs were not healthy? Try another breeder next time.

Lastly food - you could try chick crumb instead of what you are using at present as its high protein and easy to digest - I think most quail breeders use this. but make sure its fresh and well in date as if it's old it may cause digestive upsets.
Dont be disheartened - you may not be able to save all this brood but just try to keep them as dry and clean as possible- and I'm sure you'll have better luck next time. do let us know how you get on.

 

[Marigold]

P.S. Personally I would use medicated chick crumb as this may help prevent or control infections such as coccidiosis which can spread very fast in warm damp conditions in the brooder.