Are these normal duckling feet?

[Isabella Mcadams]

Hi all,
I hatched these cuties about two weeks ago (some of you might remember it was a bit of a hard hatching) and I was inspecting their feet today and I’m not sure if they’re quite normal:

 

[casportpony]

It looks like their bedding is too wet and they are starting to get sores on their feet.

 

[Lauraduck]

It looks to me like they might be getting ammonia burns on the bottoms of their feet. Is their bedding wet? Ducklings are ridiculously messy creatures and you need to constantly clean their brooder and keep it as clean and dry as possible.

 

[Isadora]

Yeah, that's not normal. Something is off with the brooder bedding.

 

[Isabella Mcadams]

Hmm. I’ve been cleaning it completely out every 3 days, and putting down fresh shavings whenever I see too much wetness. I’ll try cleaning it out more often and see if that helps. I use large flake pibe shavings, but maybe there’s something better?

 

[casportpony]

Can you post a picture of their brooder?

 

[Isabella Mcadams]

I just cleaned it out today, ducklings are busy taking a bath

I put their watered on that paint tray to avoid extra wetness

It’s 80-85 degrees outside now, so I’m moving their brooder out onto the patio today as well

 

[casportpony]

I think you might want to figure out a way to increase the size and start changing the bedding daily.

 

[bhaugh]

Ducklings don’t need water in their pen over cleaning their nares. Increasing humidity by having it in there could spell trouble for respiratory problems. A small modified container, I use a glass bowl with a portion cut out of the lid works pretty well. Bath time is done outside their pen then they return dried off to soak up the heat. Even with these measures sometimes ducks can get sick when pine shavings are used. I now use wood pellets.

 

[keringordon]

I just cleaned it out today, ducklings are busy taking a bath
View attachment 3440412
I put their watered on that paint tray to avoid extra wetness

It’s 80-85 degrees outside now, so I’m moving their brooder out onto the patio today as well

These are ducklings not hamsters they can't live in the cage like that. It's like you living in a closet it's not doable. I just rescued three ducklings from next door that were living in a guinea pig cage and they were going to die shortly mainly because they were feeding it medicated chick food because that's what cal ranch told him they needed. get them out of that cage immediately and put them in a pan with dirt. if you don't have a pen with dirt that's big enough to support adult ducks you need to find new homes for them. Just because you want ducks doesn't mean you can care for them. I myself am having problems because it's going to be 113 today in Arizona and my ducks feet are burning on the bottom so I had to put them in dog kennels in the shade with medication and antibiotics and water. they're free roaming and they have plenty of shade but it's still $113 so there's really nothing I can do. I've tried penning them up but they're miserable and they have a lot of room to roam as they are right now. They have kiddie pools and I just hosed down a big part of the yard for them. It's only 11:00 a.m. and it's 102°. Had I known this I never would have had chickens, ducks and geese.