Spick

Well, our brave girl struggled on for the best part of a week with two nasty rat bites on her upper thigh. We bought disinfectant spray, and kept her in a small cage for three days, then she showed signs of wanting to be out and about...so we released her into the main garden. Her appetite was good, and she was obviously enjoying the sunshine and the company of the other birds....but....it's Spring, and the boys were doing what male quails will do, and I think the stress of fighting them off brought her down. We saw her one evening being jumped on by Apricot, one of our dominant males, and it was distressing - she rolled away and was obviously hurt.  Interestingly, when we had initially released her, Apricot went straight over to her and kept all the other boys away, making no attempt to mate, just keeping her company. We thought it was sweet - and several times now we have noticed the birds do have a tendency to separate into pairs.
But this last evening, after fighting Apricot off, Spick went into a spasm, and looked like she was convulsing. She was limping badly, and we picked her up immediately and put her back in her small cage. She was having trouble walking, looking quite lopsided and uncomfortable. It was evening, so we left her alone, hoping she'd have recovered in the morning - but when I came back early the next day she was still convulsing - it was over. Being the cowardly woman I am I left her to Seb to cope with - there was nothing else we could do. Afterwards, when he checked her he found her leg wounds were healing well but there were feathers deep inside the bite - no sign of infection, but that can't have been good. There was also a horsefly, engorged with blood, biting on the wound. Can any of these things have caused her to convulse? Or did she have a heart attack? Or did Apricot hurt her? We'll probably never know.
She was our oldest bird, and is much missed. We buried her under the Rosemary bush - and if anyone is wondering why we didn't eat her...well, the antiseptic spray we were using on her bites explicitly stated Not for Consumption within 28 days of use on the animal....