feces in water, now enteritis

[canadamanada]

Hi. I breed a small number of quail.
Just a few days ago, I saw that feces had found its way into the waterer (it had never happened before) and looked to have been there for a few hours before I discovered it. For the last couple of days, my young quail have been passing water almost as quickly as they drink it. They display no symptoms of illness, aside form the enteritis.
I am thinking of trying the Medpet 4 in 1 pigeon meds on them.
Will this possible pass on its own?
Are there any folk remedies or alternatives? I am assuming it is an e-coli infection.
BTW, I live in Japan, and mine are more or less wild-type Japanese Coturnix. A $500 vet consultation is not in the books for this particular problem.
Any help is appreciated.

[MtBullion Gamebirds]

About 3 months ago, we got hit with Ulcerative Enteritis in all our Quail.  Lost about 250 of them in about a week.  If this is what is happening to your Coturnix, you need to get them on SOLU-TRACIN 200 (BMD) immediately.  It is a water soluble and you keep them on it until they stop dying.  Thankfully, we have a friend who is a bird Vet and he diagnosed it immediately.  All the quail are doing fine now and actually starting to lay.  But it is a very quick disease and will wipe you out before you can even take action.

We also sprayed all the pens down again with Tek Trol disinfectant. 

The symptoms are as follows:
Listlessness.
Retracted neck.
Drooping wings.
Partially closed eyes.
Ruffled feathers.
Diarrhea.
Anaemia.
Watery white feces (quail).

We are now re-thinking our flight pens.  We had been raising all our birds on the ground in large flight pens.  Now we are in the middle of constructing new pens for the quail, off the ground and on wire.  Hopefully we can prevent this from happening again.

Hope this helps. 

[canadamanada]

Thanks for the advice. Fortunately my quail do not have those symptoms, aside from the diarrhea. I am quite certain that it is not ulcerative enteritis. The quail are raised on wire, in almost aseptic conditions. It was a freak accident that the feces managed to contaminate the water, and it was only for a matter of hours.
The quail are still eating well, and are continuing to gain weight daily, it's just that water is passing through them in huge amounts and very quickly.

[MtBullion Gamebirds]

Glad to hear it was not UE.  Hopefully it will pass with no further illness.  Good luck to you.