I have a duck that stole some chicken eggs and hatched them. They are a week old, and there are 3 total. The first two are doing great but the 3rd, that hatched a day or two behind the others, had some mild troubles so I brought it inside to watch. The first issue was some incessant scratching under it's chin that would cause it to cry out (peep) quite loudly. I decided to put some DE (food grade) on my hands and gently rub it down. That seemed to take care of the trouble after about 5 minutes. I had to repeat once more the next morning when it repeated the scratching and crying. I'm assuming it had mites, although I couldn't seen any evidence of it and no one else in our flock has any that I can see. After those two mornings the chick is now fine, as far as itching goes. It is however still very small and hardly growing, but awake and chirping and moving around, drinking water and eating a little (the first few days it was so sleepy, but I think all the itching really wore it out). It seems alert and it's feathers are coming in on its wings, but in the mornings I do have to clean a bit of a pasty butt. It's mostly chalky white with a little bit of dark green bits mixed in. This morning it has a bit of poop stuck to its backside, but it's mostly dark brown (there doesn't seem to be any blood). I have some ACV in the water and it's on a non-medicated feed, but i'm wondering what else I might need to do and what exactly might be going on. My biggest concern is that it's a week old and still very small, but otherwise seems to be doing okay. The other two hatched along with it are so much bigger and yesterday I grabbed a few more chicks from the feed store to raise it with, and it seems like they are already bigger than this one and they just hatched. Of course i'm already attached so i don't want to loose this little guy. Getting pictures of droppings would be difficult as we have a few in the brooder.
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