Some relevant background information
My parents own muscovy ducks and chickens. I'm 34 and don't live at my parent's place anymore, and only visit them in the weekends, but I am a lot more interested in their fowl than they are. Also, my parents are a bit lazy, and won't do things with the birds that require too much effort. For example, catching one of our ducks once a day for any length of time is out of the question (which leaves out tons of types of treatment for diseases). Furthermore, they are stubborn and usually have their own ideas about stuff, and think little of the advice of "people from the Internet".
This means that treating illness among their poultry has developed into five distinct stages:
1) Me discovering the illness.
2) Me finding a cure online.
3) Me explaining, nagging and cajoling my parents to go through with the cure, or let me go through with it.
4) Reaching a compromise.
5) Going through with the compromise.
With that in mind, let's start discussing what I can do about the almost ever-present burden of bumblefoot in our ducks.
Some history of our bumblefoot
I first noticed bumblefoot last season in one of our young 23 ducklings. It was limping, I caught it, and I saw the telltale black scab. I din't treat it at the time, but we ended up slaughtering most of the young drakes. After we'd done that, I discovered that a lot of them, maybe 50 %, had had bumblefoot (without limping).
Fast forward a bit, and I noticed the big drake occasionally limped. I told my parents we should catch him and see what it is, but they being who they are, it took three months before we finally did it. He had rather advanced bumblefoot on both feet. A doctor friend (not veterinarian) came and cut off the scabs. Afterwards, the drake was confined to living in the duck coop for about five days, walking around on clean bedding. That seemed to work, because he hasn't limped since. We never bothered to look under his feet after that.
As we treated the drake, we also (with much troble) caught the three adult hens and looked under their feet. They were fine.
Or recent problem of bumblefoot
We currently have 22 ducklings who are 8 weeks old today. Yesterday I caught a drake and looked under his feet, and saw a little telltale scab, as well as what looked like two small cuts with swollen edges. I diagnosed it as early bumblefoot. Today I caught one hen and two more drakes; they also seemed to have early bumblefoot - one had an little area where the scales were worn off and the skin was sort of wrinkly, and the others had the small cuts I'd seen in the first one.
In trying to think of what could have caused it, I came up with some possible answers:
Walking in poop
When someone is home (most of the time, my parents are retired), the ducks free range. However, my parents are on a week-long vacation right now, and the ducks have been forced to stay in their pens for several days in a row, effectively forcing them to walk around on their own litter. The pen is rather large (some 20 by 20 feet), but they mostly walk on the area in front of the gate. Can a mere few days of walking on poop be enough for bumblefoot?
Even on days when they free range, they aren't let out until maybe 9 or 10 AM, so they've probably stepped in poop then as well.
Walking on gravel
About two weeks ago, we put gravel on the area most heavily worn down by the duck's feet. This is the type of gravel:
Dad assured me it would not damage their feet, since it would turn flat once it got compressed. However, after about a week, we thought it was too hard to pick up poop from it, so we covered most of it with sand. Could one week of walking on gravel cut their feet up?
The hill
Our ducks have a little hill inside the pen that they like to climb. It's largely made from rocks. Is it too rough?
The planks
To elevate the ducks from the muddy ground, we once made a little "raft" of planks for them to stand on. Most of them sleep on it at night. Does it cut up their feet? It can be seen in the centre of the image here:
The food
Our ducks get "ordinary" chicken pellets. It it too nutritious, causing them to grow too fast, or something? Or is it unhealthy for them in another way? The people we got them from recommended to always give them crushed oats, but since the ducks much preferred to eat the chicken's food, we switched.
The grass
The grass in the pen is sort of tough, growing in sparse tufts, rather than the smooth surface of our lawn. I feel like I'm reaching now, but could the grass be the culprit?
Curing it
The drake's treatment - getting locked up in the coop - is probably not good. The coop and pen was designed to keep up to 6 ducks, 20+ ducklings will make the coop too crowded. A picture of it:
Catching them one by one and treating them with ointments and such is out of the question, for reasons already mentioned.
What may seem harsh, but I think is the best solution, is to simply slaughter all ducks that show symptoms. We meant to eat or sell all the ducklings anyway.
Is there a hereditary aspect to bumblefoot? Maybe our ducks just have really bad genes for it, and if we keep slaughtering any individuals showing symptoms for a few generations, we will eventually breed a flock much less bumblefoot-prone?
As I said, I am at a loss and would love for some input.
My parents own muscovy ducks and chickens. I'm 34 and don't live at my parent's place anymore, and only visit them in the weekends, but I am a lot more interested in their fowl than they are. Also, my parents are a bit lazy, and won't do things with the birds that require too much effort. For example, catching one of our ducks once a day for any length of time is out of the question (which leaves out tons of types of treatment for diseases). Furthermore, they are stubborn and usually have their own ideas about stuff, and think little of the advice of "people from the Internet".
This means that treating illness among their poultry has developed into five distinct stages:
1) Me discovering the illness.
2) Me finding a cure online.
3) Me explaining, nagging and cajoling my parents to go through with the cure, or let me go through with it.
4) Reaching a compromise.
5) Going through with the compromise.
With that in mind, let's start discussing what I can do about the almost ever-present burden of bumblefoot in our ducks.
Some history of our bumblefoot
I first noticed bumblefoot last season in one of our young 23 ducklings. It was limping, I caught it, and I saw the telltale black scab. I din't treat it at the time, but we ended up slaughtering most of the young drakes. After we'd done that, I discovered that a lot of them, maybe 50 %, had had bumblefoot (without limping).
Fast forward a bit, and I noticed the big drake occasionally limped. I told my parents we should catch him and see what it is, but they being who they are, it took three months before we finally did it. He had rather advanced bumblefoot on both feet. A doctor friend (not veterinarian) came and cut off the scabs. Afterwards, the drake was confined to living in the duck coop for about five days, walking around on clean bedding. That seemed to work, because he hasn't limped since. We never bothered to look under his feet after that.
As we treated the drake, we also (with much troble) caught the three adult hens and looked under their feet. They were fine.
Or recent problem of bumblefoot
We currently have 22 ducklings who are 8 weeks old today. Yesterday I caught a drake and looked under his feet, and saw a little telltale scab, as well as what looked like two small cuts with swollen edges. I diagnosed it as early bumblefoot. Today I caught one hen and two more drakes; they also seemed to have early bumblefoot - one had an little area where the scales were worn off and the skin was sort of wrinkly, and the others had the small cuts I'd seen in the first one.
In trying to think of what could have caused it, I came up with some possible answers:
Walking in poop
When someone is home (most of the time, my parents are retired), the ducks free range. However, my parents are on a week-long vacation right now, and the ducks have been forced to stay in their pens for several days in a row, effectively forcing them to walk around on their own litter. The pen is rather large (some 20 by 20 feet), but they mostly walk on the area in front of the gate. Can a mere few days of walking on poop be enough for bumblefoot?
Even on days when they free range, they aren't let out until maybe 9 or 10 AM, so they've probably stepped in poop then as well.
Walking on gravel
About two weeks ago, we put gravel on the area most heavily worn down by the duck's feet. This is the type of gravel:
Dad assured me it would not damage their feet, since it would turn flat once it got compressed. However, after about a week, we thought it was too hard to pick up poop from it, so we covered most of it with sand. Could one week of walking on gravel cut their feet up?
The hill
Our ducks have a little hill inside the pen that they like to climb. It's largely made from rocks. Is it too rough?
The planks
To elevate the ducks from the muddy ground, we once made a little "raft" of planks for them to stand on. Most of them sleep on it at night. Does it cut up their feet? It can be seen in the centre of the image here:
The food
Our ducks get "ordinary" chicken pellets. It it too nutritious, causing them to grow too fast, or something? Or is it unhealthy for them in another way? The people we got them from recommended to always give them crushed oats, but since the ducks much preferred to eat the chicken's food, we switched.
The grass
The grass in the pen is sort of tough, growing in sparse tufts, rather than the smooth surface of our lawn. I feel like I'm reaching now, but could the grass be the culprit?
Curing it
The drake's treatment - getting locked up in the coop - is probably not good. The coop and pen was designed to keep up to 6 ducks, 20+ ducklings will make the coop too crowded. A picture of it:
Catching them one by one and treating them with ointments and such is out of the question, for reasons already mentioned.
What may seem harsh, but I think is the best solution, is to simply slaughter all ducks that show symptoms. We meant to eat or sell all the ducklings anyway.
Is there a hereditary aspect to bumblefoot? Maybe our ducks just have really bad genes for it, and if we keep slaughtering any individuals showing symptoms for a few generations, we will eventually breed a flock much less bumblefoot-prone?
As I said, I am at a loss and would love for some input.
