I Need some Help, Please!

[Kalamari]

Howdy y'all, I'm super new to this site but I was still hoping for some help. Let me start out by saying that I've kept a flock of six guniea fowl for about a year and a half now and haven't had any sort of problems at all. Anyways, after Easter I sent my husband to the feed store for guinea food and he ended up bringing back seven ducklings of an unknown age. They were the last ones there and he felt bad for them. I know, what a softy.

Anyways, we kept them inside for two weeks and moved them out to the coop (still in their kennel so the guineas couldn't get em) after that. Turns out they got along great and after another few weeks I let them out to free range with the guineas every morning and put them back in the coop at night to keep them safe form predators.

Fast forward to today (I've had the ducks about two months now) and when I came outside today two of my ducks were on the ground spasming. Their legs kept kicking and I tried to stand them up but they would just stumble forward until they fell over and it was like they couldn't control their necks at all. Within minutes one of them had died and I culled the other one because he seemed like he was suffering quite a bit.

Does anyone know what might have happened with these guys? I couldn't find any wounds on them (at first I thought maybe they had been snake bit, I live in the heart of rattlesnake country and kill about three to five any given year) and I don't put any sort of poison out in my cattle pasture. The property next door grows maize and cotton, do you think it was maybe a pesticide or something that messed them up?

One of the remaining ducks is acting weird like he is struggling to walk, but he's seems to have enough fight in him that I don't want to cull him yet, because I really want him to make it. My two year old son loves his ducks and I love their vicious appetite for Mosquitos. Should I quarantine him or keep him with his family?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[gal5150]

I can't speak to spasms but what have you fed them over the past 2 months? Ducks need more niacin than other birds. Niacin deficiency can severely effect legs. Brewers yeast is an excellent source sprinkled on top of the food. I get mine from a vitamin shop. If niacin is the issue you should see improvement within days...though if it's a 2 month deficiency I'm not sure.

 

[Kalamari]

I feed the ducks Dumor Poultry Layer Crumble and the guineas get game bird feed. I make sure to feed them separate so the ducks don't eat the guineas food, since it has so much protein in it. The bag says it's good for ducks, but do you think they need a niacin supplement as well?

 

[Kalamari]

Anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[butterfly mom]

Niacin is all I can think of, but I'm pretty new to ducks and haven't learned a lot about illnesses yet.

 

[AceWeasel]

I'd go with giving them niacin too. the food we got our two ducks said it was good for starting ducks on but still didn't have enough niacin for them so we've been having to supplement them with nutritional yeast. we only found out it didn't have enough niacin after one of the ducks suddenly became unable to use one of their legs.

 

[gal5150]

Unfortunately, even though the food has niacin in it it is generally not enough for growing ducks and supplementing with Brewer's yeast or niacin supplement in the water is necessary. Brewers yeast is super easy to put on top of the food daily and gives the added niacin needed. That would be my suggestion.