My muscovy duck's chest seems bigger! Need advice!

[DuckyAndCo]

Hi everyone.

Not sure if this is posted in the right place but hoping someone can help us.
We have a muscovy duck (female we believe). She is 1 year old. We started to notice a few weeks ago that her chest looks a little bigger than usual and also her beak changed the color. Before it was more reddish and now it became pick and greenish/yellowish, also around the eyes.

She used to fly often and run very fast in the backyard, and now she does not fly at all and it seems to have trouble when tries to run fast (like if she was chubbier or something)... We know she is not "pregnant" or anything but just the looks of chest and beak does not seem right to us.

We feed her Purina flock raiser. She has her own little pond with fresh clean water and bowls with water of course.

Anybody experienced anything similar to this? Should we change her food? Is she sick?

Please advice us! Here 2 pictures of our duck so you guys can see what we talk about.


Thanks.

 

[Amiga]

If you have a vet I would take her - Muscovies can get anemia, I think. Let me look that up.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/common-muscovy-health-problems

Something else might be some kind of parasite.

Also, sometimes there are - I think I read this recently - air sac ruptures.

She may have some kind of infection.

I know there are many muscovy keepers here, including @Miss Lydia and @Going Quackers

 

[Going Quackers]

I have not, hmmm... her eyes appear bright and clear but the colouring of green is not something i want to hear nor is that something i have seen, is she egg bound? i only have one scovie laying right now... she has just resumed from having a clutch this summer....

I wonder about anemic too.. i would try some poultry vitamins...

If you can get a vet, that would likely be ideal. I am not fortunate to have that option, so that would be my coarse of action(vits and checking for eggbound). I hope you can get to the bottom of the issue, and yes it looks like a female.

 

[DuckyAndCo]

Thank you Amiga and Going Quackers for your advices.

In the last 2 days her bill and around her eyes looks like going back to her usual color. Her chest does not look that big now. Just normal big after she eats because she is an eater!
I'm making her walk more in the backyard (the thing is she likes to follow me all around so she needs me to stay around when she is in the backyard), she is an spoiled duck I guess.

I let her eat a lot of what she finds in the yard (ants, grass, etc). She seems a little more active now than past days and not that heavy. I have some electrolytes and probiotic that I had bought while ago at the feed store, do you think that would help her a little?

As for egg bound, doesn't she need a mate to produce eggs? I'm not an expert in ducks as you can see. For what I know she hasn't been with a "guy"

In the past some other ducks (male) came to see her but she ran away from them so they did not touch her a bit.

An avian vet in this area is gonna leave us broke but we will definitely do if we see something bad going on, we love this duck.

 

[Going Quackers]

Thank you Amiga and Going Quackers for your advices.

In the last 2 days her bill and around her eyes looks like going back to her usual color. Her chest does not look that big now. Just normal big after she eats because she is an eater!
I'm making her walk more in the backyard (the thing is she likes to follow me all around so she needs me to stay around when she is in the backyard), she is an spoiled duck I guess.

I let her eat a lot of what she finds in the yard (ants, grass, etc). She seems a little more active now than past days and not that heavy. I have some electrolytes and probiotic that I had bought while ago at the feed store, do you think that would help her a little?

As for egg bound, doesn't she need a mate to produce eggs? I'm not an expert in ducks as you can see. For what I know she hasn't been with a "guy"

In the past some other ducks (male) came to see her but she ran away from them so they did not touch her a bit.

An avian vet in this area is gonna leave us broke but we will definitely do if we see something bad going on, we love this duck.

Glad to hear that, yes, it's okay it's a common misconception no drake is needed of her to lay eggs only for them to be fertile. Do you have oyster shell for her? i toss some in a bowl in a few places for ladies to eat free choice, it's basically something they take in if they need it.

Muscovy are awesome foragers so that is fantastic for her to get to roam and locate feeds, that will supplement her diet. Can you get some vitamins? perhaps she is a bit low in something unfortunately, some ducks even fed a proper diet and be deficient, their bodies just don't process stuff right.

I understand, i have no vet access here.. i do know of an Avian a few hours away as we used one years ago with our parrots but that would be beyond and i don't think they'd look at a duck anyways lol

I hope she continues to improve, could she gotten into anything that made her a bit off? they are super curious little buggers.

 

[Buck Oakes]

Quote:
Even if she's not pregnant she can be egg bound, or unable to push out eggs, and also go immediately to the vet, look up exotic vets because they take in chickens and ducks, you don't need a special vet for them. So an exotic vet can be useful. She could have enteritis or in other words duck plague!! It is caused by round worms or other birds, so if she has it you need to treat the whole flock.

 

[Amykins]

I agree that she needs to see a vet immediately. It could be anything from an impacted to crop to a deadly candida infection. She looks pretty miserable, please go get her treated by a professional. :/

 

[Buck Oakes]

And roundworms can come from grasses, and other natural plants , and tainted water

 

[Ninuschka]

I've seen a similar thing happen to two of my Muscovy ducks. Basically, the neck/chest area was swollen, almost touching the ground. It seemed like the ducks had food stuck in their 'crops' (though apparently Muscovy duck don't have crops like chickens do).
The first time I didn't know what to do, and after some time I decided to dispatch the duck; in hindsight this turned out to be a wise decision.
In a normal duck (or chicken) there are a set of glands down the sides of the esophagus and trachea (wind pipe). In the cases of these two ducks, one or more of the glands had grown abnormally large. In fact, I found with the first duck that what should have been a bean sized gland had swollen to tennis ball size!
The attached image shows the second duck which had this complication; in this case I recognized problem and didn't let the situation progress too far.

 

[casportpony]

I've seen a similar thing happen to two of my Muscovy ducks. Basically, the neck/chest area was swollen, almost touching the ground. It seemed like the ducks had food stuck in their 'crops' (though apparently Muscovy duck don't have crops like chickens do).
The first time I didn't know what to do, and after some time I decided to dispatch the duck; in hindsight this turned out to be a wise decision.
In a normal duck (or chicken) there are a set of glands down the sides of the esophagus and trachea (wind pipe). In the cases of these two ducks, one or more of the glands had grown abnormally large. In fact, I found with the first duck that what should have been a bean sized gland had swollen to tennis ball size!
The attached image shows the second duck which had this complication; in this case I recognized problem and didn't let the situation progress too far.

Did you dissect the glands?