Quail raising

We have 15 quail and my wife has been taking care of them since we got them last May. The other day my wife broke her arm and I became the person tending the quail. I guess I did something stupid. The pen we have them in has shavings on the floor. Today when I tended them I gave them some apple slices with the daily allotment of grain and I thought the apple slices will get really dirty on the floor so I put them on a Styrofoam plate. Hours later I told my wife what I did and she told me to get the plate before they eat it. The little buggers trimmed the edge of the plate the whole way around. Will this be life threatening?

Styrofoam can occasionally kill chickens by causing an intestinal blockage or filling them up enough that they don't eat food and starve. An uncle of mine had some chickens die from eating styrofoam. That said, chickens frequently eat styrofoam and all sorts of worse stuff and usually live.

The quail are basically smaller versions of chickens, when it comes to their digestive tract. Hopefully they did not eat enough to harm themselves.

Keith

You should be okay. I had a whole johnny house full of over 100 bobwhite eat the pink foam insulation out of a wall. They all lived through that. They are aggressive little birds but mine are easy keepers and low maintenance.

So far so good, they were hungry little birds this morning and all were accounted for. I don't know if all 15 nibbled on the plate or if it was just a few, they pretty much ate the entire rim of the plate. They really like lettuce.