Three pekins in three different homes died within three days of eachother

I understand when they're very young they can just die, but this was a completely odd set of circumstances. Same breed in different homes died within three days of each other, and they were all about three weeks of age, beyond that "iffy" stage of life. Even if they were "stressed" they would all be equally stressed and more ducks would have died, and more from previous years of the experiment would have died. The symptoms (or lack there of) also don't point to stress being the culprit, all were eating and drinking normally and they died within an hour of being ill.
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Also, I acknowledge "attacking" might have been a strong term, but nonetheless this thread has become about an unrelated issue. You can imagine, if you're looking for legitimate insight and all you get is scolding about an obviously unrelated element, that can get a bit frustrating.
 
do any of you who are in this class have chickens at home? or other ducks, turkeys..etc? maybe someone brought in a disease from home without knowing it?
 
I have chickens, but my duck isn't sick, and two of the ducks that died hadn't been in contact with each other at any point since they were a day old because they missed Ducky Daycare (that's what we call when the ducks come to school once a week.) I believe it's too much of a coincidence that only that breed died within days of each other, we had several different breeds and no others have had issues.

My teacher suspects it's a genetic metabolic disorder, hense why only one breed had deaths, because they were likely rfrom the same clutch. This theory also might work because of the speed of the death after first sign of something being wrong; once they deplete whatever it is that they can no longer metabolize, that's it, its like a ticking time bomb. Or perhaps a hormone is not being responded to correctly, since they were in the maturing stage of life one such a hormone may be present in large amounts. Neither of these theories are for certain, and probably never will be, but I just wanted to check my info against someone who might have encountered a similar issue.
 
Yeah i would have them tested if you really want to know for sure.
Pekins do grow alot faster than other breeds.
were they having trouble walking before they died?
 
Where were the ducklings obtained? Feed store? If so, they usually get them from a hatchery, so not likely the pekins are of the same clutch.
If from a local person, then it could be an issue with the genetics of their pekins.

Everybody here could throw out a different suggestion, but without a necropsy, that's all they are, guesses.
 
One was having "seizures" the day before, which might be confused with just being unable to walk, but the other two weren't.
 

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