Cracked/bleeding bill and skin near eye -- frostbite or dry skin, or something?

[prestoconfuoco]

Hi everyone,

I live in upstate NY (as in really upstate), so it gets very very cold here.

My drakes in particular have had peeling skin on their bills for a few months, but it always looked very normal to me so I didn't worry about it very much -- just normal shedding dead skin-cells type of thing.

A few days ago I noticed the skin where the bill meets the face on my welsh harlequin drake is cracked and bleeding, so I decided to up his calcium intake by giving him Mazuri breeder feed. Today when I let them out, there was a tiny bit of blood on the skin near his eye, and the skin on his bill isn't looking great.

I spoke to an acquaintance and her theory is that it's because we will occasionally get sub-zero temps/etc. here, so I'm wondering if this could be frostbite or dry skin due to the intense cold. As soon as I get home (about an hour) I'm going to bring him inside and let him warm up and sit by a humidifier -- my acquaintance theorized that he will need increased bloodflow to heal. That being said, I have an appointment at the vet on Saturday for a different duck (I can't catch a break), so I'm going to bring him in for a check-in with the vet too. I'm thinking the duck house might not have enough ventilation for cold nights.

Has anyone seen this before? Does it seem like it would be caused by the cold, or perhaps something else? FYI, he is acting 100% normal—I just worry a ton, because even though he can't stand me (lol) he's my baby!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

@Isaac 0 @Miss Lydia @shawluvsbirds

 

[Miss Lydia]

I wish I knew what could be wrong, but I think I'd put some kind of antibiotic ointment on it. Since it's cold out his skin might be dry and he has scratched around his eye? have you seen him doing this. I think it would be a good idea to have a vet look at it. I've seen many members post about their ducks bill peeling I think that is pretty normal but for there to be blood I don't think that is.
here is some real informative info on coop ventilation
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop.47774/

 

[Miss Lydia]

great explaination of the peeling https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/dry-beak.1506708/#post-25268131
post#3

 

[prestoconfuoco]

Hey everyone, thanks for your responses and sorry for my delay!

I took him to the vet yesterday, and the vet thinks it's a sinus infection, so he gave me an antibiotic ointment to put on his eyes and bill, and a liquid antibiotic.

However, I think it's being exacerbated by bullying -- I'm just now discovering there's a bullying problem where he is being picked on, so I'm going to have to sort that out. Poor guy.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I hate bullying I'm sorry he is going through this. That can really be stressful for them. When I had multiple Muscovy drakes I had no choice but to keep them separated from each other because of not just bullying but fighting. How many drakes to females do you have? just thinking maybe you can give him his own space with 2-3 females?

 

[prestoconfuoco]

I hate bullying I'm sorry he is going through this. That can really be stressful for them. When I had multiple Muscovy drakes I had no choice but to keep them separated from each other because of not just bullying but fighting. How many drakes to females do you have? just thinking maybe you can give him his own space with 2-3 females?

Me too—it's the worst. When we love our all of our pets it's so tough to see them bothering each other—all we want is for them to get along and be happy. This week has been a little bit of a duck nightmare with everything going on!

I have one pen divided in half, with three females on one side and three drakes on the other side.

We've had some fighting between the drakes before. They aren't even a year old yet, but they get really competitive in the water, specifically. I thought we would at least be good for the year, because this is so NOT breeding/hormone season...

It's really strange how it started happening. We used to have four females—very sadly one of our ducks Peaches passed away recently. She was best buddies with Violet, one of our other ducks. After Peaches passed away, I was really worried Violet wouldn't do well and would start freaking out because she couldn't find Peaches—but she hasn't done that at all, thank goodness. Instead, though, she started getting really into the boys all of the sudden—so now she continuously walks along the edge of the fence between them and flirts with them, etc. For some reason Peaches passing away really changed the whole dynamic, because now the flirting between the boys & girls is really intense across the fence.

So specifically since that started happening, about two weeks ago, poor Turtle has been being picked on by his Pekin "siblings". They've been tackling him/grabbing his neck/sitting on his back, really trying to dominate him. I'm actually not 100% sure if they are both picking on him or if it's one aggressor, because they look so similar that I can only tell them apart up close. Thankfully, I've only ever seen one of them do this at a time—it's not that they are both ganging up on him. Like I said, it might only be one who is the bully.

That said: my first plan is going to be to block line of vision between the boys and the girls and see if that calms everyone down. I have a feeling that will help a lot, but I can't be 100% sure. If I have to, I'll have to divide the boys' pen a little further, which would suck because they don't have a ton of space to begin with.

Thanks for your concern, and if you read my whole ramble, thanks for that, too!

 

[Miss Lydia]

You could also try him in with your females. I don't know what this might do to the 2 left on the other side but at least Turtle wouldn't be bullied.
I hope the meds get him on the mend too.
And very sorry for your loss of Peaches.

 

[prestoconfuoco]

You could also try him in with your females. I don't know what this might do to the 2 left on the other side but at least Turtle wouldn't be bullied.
I hope the meds get him on the mend too.
And very sorry for your loss of Peaches.

Thanks for your kind words. Peaches was wonderful. I hope he'll be on the mend soon, too, and I hope things start to stabilize around a normal winter temperature around here -- it makes it so hard on them when the temp flip flops from 20 to -20 in the space of several days (we have one day next week that has a high of 20 and a low of -15...).

I haven't ever considered putting him in with the females because I was always told 1 drake to 4 females was the optimal ratio, but I'll do some reading and i might try him out with them and see how he does!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Try him and keep an eye on things. Unless he is overly aggressive 3to1 should be okay.