Any experience with lead poisoning please?

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I think our area is probably still considered rural even though suburban sprawl is oozing all around us. The smallest lot in our "neighborhood" was 3 acres but most of us have double or more lots. It seems like just about everyone around here shoots in their own yard, but we've all been...not idiots and don't shoot towards someone's house. We did call the Sheriff about the shot raining down on us that day, it started again after the deputy left the neighbor's driveway.
Anyway. I still don't know what to think about this duck, we're calling her Phoebe (because of the Pb). Friday night she seemed to be going down hill. She didn't seem to have much interest in food and didn't seem like she could move her wings much. Yesterday we brought a duck inside to join her for swim time in the bathtub. I made up a bowl of their crumble softened with warm water, mixed in a squirt of b vitamins (can't remember the exact name but it was recommended from folks on here last year, it's from Tractor Supply), and tossed in a handful of peas that were cooked until they got soft. Held the bowl for the ducks while they were in the tub and Phoebe went nutso gobbling it up. Maybe having a friend to compete with encouraged her to eat more? She didn't seem happy about the other duck being with her once they were out of the water though. The friend (Althea) kept stepping on Phoebe, stepped on her wing then stood on her head...not fun when you can't get out of the way. I did a little physical therapy with Phoebe after her swim, gently lifted her wings a little and flapped them to help her dry her wingpits. Later after she had another swim I helped her do a little bit of flapping again and then she lifted her wings a little on her own. She tried to stand on her own out of the water but her balance was still really bad so she was tipping. I put my hand under her chest to support her and she stood for several minutes. She ate and drank well again last night. I made her a bed in a laundry basket and had her sleep in my brother's bedroom last night, thought maybe having a person as company might improve her mood. She did a good amount of stinky poops over night, ate and drank well this morning. No more pellets in her poops. She had swim time with Althea again. I made the water a little deeper and she walked around in the tub for a bit. She ate well in the tub, had her flappy physical therapy after swimming again. I dried her off and put her in her fresh basket bed. She stood up on her own with no support but seemed a little wobbly so I put a rolled up blanket under her chest for support. Then she stood in her bed for quite a while preening. She even oiled herself! She hasn't made an effort to reach her oil gland in days. I'm very cautiously optimistic. Maybe she just ate those two pellets and maybe they weren't in her system too long. I don't expect her to get back to normal but at least she doesn't seem to be getting worse.

With sick ducks there is one rule: As long as they eat and drink there's hope! Bazilla Duck, one of my White Layers was lying on the ground, cramping and could not get her legs under her belly last fall and because she was panting heavy, i sat her down in a bowl with cool water. She started to drink immediately, i threw in some meal-worms which she happily gobbled up and after two hours she was back to normal. - Still spent the night on our patio.
With heavy metal poisoning it is normal that it gets worse before it will get better. Crossing all fingers i have for PB!

 

[KCNC06]

With sick ducks there is one rule: As long as they eat and drink there's hope! Bazilla Duck, one of my White Layers was lying on the ground, cramping and could not get her legs under her belly last fall and because she was panting heavy, i sat her down in a bowl with cool water. She started to drink immediately, i threw in some meal-worms which she happily gobbled up and after two hours she was back to normal. - Still spent the night on our patio.
With heavy metal poisoning it is normal that it gets worse before it will get better. Crossing all fingers i have for PB!

My husband seems very happy that Phoebe seems to be making progress. Probably because culling is his responsibility and since we always end up with too many male birds, it stinks losing a girl. He's probably also thinking he'll get his bathroom back soon. I keep reminding him that this will probably be a long recovery if she recovers. She was able to stand in her own without support this morning. She ate and did a bunch of stinky poops. Gotta say, picking through duck poo is probably about the craziest thing I've ever done. Especially since I don't even think twice about it. When you're all "Wow! That's a really stinky poops! Let's examine it to make sure there's no more metal pellets." Hahaha! Yup, that's a line I didn't see myself crossing.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

My husband seems very happy that Phoebe seems to be making progress. Probably because culling is his responsibility and since we always end up with too many male birds, it stinks losing a girl. He's probably also thinking he'll get his bathroom back soon. I keep reminding him that this will probably be a long recovery if she recovers. She was able to stand in her own without support this morning. She ate and did a bunch of stinky poops. Gotta say, picking through duck poo is probably about the craziest thing I've ever done. Especially since I don't even think twice about it. When you're all "Wow! That's a really stinky poops! Let's examine it to make sure there's no more metal pellets." Hahaha! Yup, that's a line I didn't see myself crossing.

Duck poop is disgusting! The only thing i don't like with ducks, especially when they have eaten a lot of protein. (Like now when i feed them lots of cat kibbles because they're all molting )
So far have any more led-pebbles shown up in her poo?
It is a good sign that she was able to stand on her own legs! If no more led comes out, she has a good chance for recovering.

 

[KCNC06]

Duck poop is disgusting! The only thing i don't like with ducks, especially when they have eaten a lot of protein. (Like now when i feed them lots of cat kibbles because they're all molting )
So far have any more led-pebbles shown up in her poo?
It is a good sign that she was able to stand on her own legs! If no more led comes out, she has a good chance for recovering.

Duck poo is pretty much the most disgusting poo I've ever dealt with. Other than the time my dog got into some organic fish and kelp fertilizer and shot diarrhea around our bedroom closet. I tore the carpet up after that one. It wasn't even worth trying to clean.
I haven't found any more pellets in Phoebe's poop. The last one I found was on Friday, so just the two pellets. It does seem like she's recovering which is still surprising. She was able to lift her wings a little more today and even balanced herself enough to scratch her face with one of her feet. It's amazing. On Friday she lost her balance in the bathtub and her head fell under the water. I didn't let her struggle long enough to know for sure that she couldn't have gotten up on her own, but it definitely looked like she would have drown if she was alone.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

How is Phoebe doing?

 

[KCNC06]

She seems to be getting a little better every day. It's slow going though and I still worry that she won't regain enough strength or coordination to return to the flock. She has trouble with her feet outside of the water, can't always get them to work quite right. When she tries to stand her feet don't usually plant firmly under her. Sometimes a foot will be upside down or on its side, or the foot won't open all the way. And when she does get both feet flat on the floor and she looks like she's trying to take a step, her feet kind of slide out from under her. I'm hoping to make her a PVC framed wheelchair this weekend. Hopefully she'll be able to use that to exercise her legs a little outside of swim time.
Her voice is definitely getting stronger. She didn't make any noise the first six or so days she was inside. I started worrying that she might be a "he" (no offense to boys but we always have too many drakes, going through this much effort to rescue a drake would be ridiculous). She doesn't have a true quack to her voice yet but she happily honks at me and plays "bite you" with my hand.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

That is good news!
The slow progress she is making is a typical sign for heavy metal poisoning, but she will be a bit better every day. Exercise is important, but you need to be patient. If she lets you, you can massage her feet to stimulate the nerves and do some physical therapy, moving her legs and spreading her wings.
In order to mitigate the effects of led on her nerves, you can give her some extra vitamin E and B complex, either as an OTC food supply or by adding some treats to her diet. Peas contain a lot of B vitamins and sunflower kernels contain lot's of vitamin E. And i assume she will love to eat both.
Some anti-oxidants (carotenoides) may help too, i would try to feed her some fine cut red-cabbage - don't be surprised if her legs and bill become brighter colored after feeding this for a while. Red cabbage has turned out as some kind of a miracle food for my ducks, it helps them to re-grow their feathers faster and - umm, just better. Limpy, my limping drake benefits the most from this stuff, during cold weather he usually hides somewhere in a quiet spot and sleeps for most of the day, but when fed the cabbage he becomes much more active. - That makes me think now, maybe i should try some red-cabbage too?

 

[KCNC06]

@WannaBeHillBilly - First, I really appreciate your help, suggestions and encouragement with Phoebe! For a few days there I was wondering if trying to rescue her was the wrong choice. Especially since I haven't found much, if any, information online that says recovering from lead poisoning is even possible. Even wildlife rehab articles that talk about treating with chelation ended with the bird dying. I've had people chastise me for not taking her to a vet because she *could* have more lead pellets in her system. I'm still keeping a close eye on her poops and haven't found any pellets since Friday last week. Plus her condition has improved SO much this week that I find it hard to believe she could have any more pellets in her.
Anyway. I've been adding some of that Durvet high potency B-complex stuff to her food and mix a handful of peas into her food slop. I still have to add water to her food so it's sloppy mush but at least she eats it while she's digging for peas. I started giving her some bits of blueberries cut into tiny pieces, well mixing them into the mush, but she doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in the blueberries. I'll definitely add red cabbage to my grocery list so I can try that! And I agree, if it works that well for Limpy I'm thinking everyone around here could use some! I thought the most magical thing about cabbage was the toots it produces, I'm now very curious about the other magical powers it might have! Which leads me to a question - does cabbage make duck poo smell as bad as collards do? My outside ducks love collards but collards make poops stink!
I've been doing physical therapy with her since Saturday. I gently lift her wings and do little flappy movements for her. I've been gently massaging her too. I thought massage might increase circulation or something. She doesn't seem to hate it so I figured at very least it was making her feel more comfortable with people. She's been able to lift her wings a little more every day. I'm hoping she'll be able to lift them enough to be able to tuck her bill under a wing while she sleeps again soon. She seems to miss that. She likes to stuff her bill into someone's hand when she's sleepy.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Reading this am pretty sure she will make a good recovery, maybe not a full recovery, but good enough to have a duckworthy life! Led and heavy metals are mean, when the symptoms appear it is often too late. Glad you caught it in time.
Chelate treatments are a double edged sword: On one hand the chelates build a complex around heavy metals so that they can be peed out, on the other hand chelates are quite toxic themselves and can cause liver and kidney damage. Plus they may remove the wrong metal ions, like iron… A chelate therapy only makes sense for an acute poisoning, like when workers were exposed to tetra-ethyl-led (the stuff that was in the gasoline). But Phoebe has more of a chronic poisoning. Damage is done we need to help her fix as much of it and then help her to deal with the things that cannot be undone, hopefully just minor stuff.
My ducks never ate collard greens, so i don't know how their poop would smell, but as a rule of thumb: The more protein, the more disgusting the poop - not only the smell. I will never forget the day after my duck's grasshopper-poisoning, there was poop everywhere in the duck-house, really everywhere! And the smell was ☠
With red-cabbage, their poop is more substantial, like thick green sausages and it doesn't smell at all - well i have not picked my nose into it, but a really bad smelling duck-poop stinks a mile against the wind!
Phoebe will be very comfortable around you in the future, she knows that you are helping her and she will remember it. Same here with my Limpy. All ducks take off screaming when they see me with that evil white bag of duck-pellets! Except for Limpy and Nona, they know that neither the bag nor i will eat them.

 

[KCNC06]

Collards, in my opinion, smell terrible on their own even I'm the garden. Cooking and digesting them does NOT help their odor. It doesn't matter what's eating them either. Human or duck, collards smell worse coming out than they did going in which is pretty crazy.
I'm pretty sure our dog is starting to get jealous of Phoebe's PT and massage therapy routine. He's starting to act like a bigger brat than usual. To his credit, Phoebe is getting some extra special attention and loving it more than I imagined possible. I put my hands under her wings to message her back and hips, she stretches out like she's sunbathing. Neck fully extended resting on my leg and both of her legs stretched out behind her. She didn't even mind letting me rub her legs and feet. They felt a little dry so I massaged them with a little coconut oil. And then made fun of myself because...well, it's ridiculous to sit in your livingroom massaging a duck.