Da' Cute and Cuddly Call Duck thread!

[Julie Birb]

I am officially dead from the cute. 

Heehee. I get it.

 

[AmandaVirginia]

I GOT MY LITTLE YELLOW BABY!!! I FINALLY GOT IT!!! AND, I AM SO VERY HAPPY!!!

Praying for a little girl! Going to have **hopefully her** sexed in a couple of days! Haha, so does it look like a little Snowy or a White call?

 

[casportpony]

Cute!

-Kathy

 

[Ledgewood7]

Help! I just hatched my second round of call duck eggs in my dry air incubator. I could tell something was off this time, I had more humidity and temp flucuation. Only 3 hatched out of 8 and I had to assist on day 27. They never would have made it out on their own as they were shrink wrapped. They have been completely out of their shells for almost 48 hours now but all they do is roll on their backs. They cannot stand or walk on their own. Is there anything i can do for them? Has anyone else experienced this before?

 

[casportpony]

Help! I just hatched my second round of call duck eggs in my dry air incubator. I could tell something was off this time, I had more humidity and temp flucuation. Only 3 hatched out of 8 and I had to assist on day 27. They never would have made it out on their own as they were shrink wrapped. They have been completely out of their shells for almost 48 hours now but all they do is roll on their backs. They cannot stand or walk on their own. Is there anything i can do for them? Has anyone else experienced this before?

They could be dehydrated. How moist do their mouths and eyes look? At 48 hours our of their shells, they need fluids. A visit to the vet would be your best choice, but if you can't do that, which I completely understand and will give you no grief for, you could try to give them drops of pedialyte. I'm doing this right now with one of mine. Do you have a 1ml syringe?

-Kathy

 

[Amykins]

They could be dehydrated. How moist do their mouths and eyes look? At 48 hours our of their shells, they need fluids. A visit to the vet would be your best choice, but if you can't do that, which I completely understand and will give you no grief for, you could try to give them drops of pedialyte. I'm doing this right now with one of mine. Do you have a 1ml syringe?

-Kathy

Dehydration seems unlikely. The pedialyte is a good idea though, since they may just need an extra boost of sugar and nutrients.

I also recommend a vet, because there's a possibility their yolks could be harboring bacteria, and that can be fatal. It happened to Wobbles; he also needed assistance hatching and he also was very weak and couldn't walk or right himself for a long time (hence his name!) What we did was give him some crushed up B-complex vitamin in sugar water; the sugar helped sustain him and the B6 gave him niacin to help his bones and tendons while the B12 and riboflavin gave him energy. He pulled through, thank goodness.

He still needed a round of antibiotics, but without that energy boost his system wasn't strong enough to handle the medication. If you can get the sugar water/vitamin concoction into a syringe or a q-tip and get some in their bills, they don't even need to swallow it but as long as it hits their tongues they should be able to absorb it. Don't force it or give 'em too much at once, or they could aspirate it instead.

Please keep us posted, okay? Poor duckies, we're all rooting for ya!

 

[casportpony]

Got two in my incubator right now that have "tacky" mucus membranes, and one of them keeps flipping over, so I think that dehydration is more common than people think. Many people think that duckinks and chicks have 72 hours to live off the yolk before needing water/food, but this is not always true, some do hatch mildly dehydrated, then add 48 hours on-top of that and they are in *serious* trouble. Of course I'm always also concerned about yolk sac infections, too, but the average owner will not be able to treat those unless they have something like Baytril or Cipro.

-Kathy

 

[Fizzgig]

I GOT MY LITTLE YELLOW BABY!!! I FINALLY GOT IT!!! AND, I AM SO VERY HAPPY!!!

Praying for a little girl! Going to have **hopefully her** sexed in a couple of days! Haha, so does it look like a little Snowy or a White call?

Is it dayglo yellow or does it have a slight grey tint to the tips of its feather fluff?

 

[casportpony]

Okay, so I just re-read the post... they were assisted out at day 27, so already 24 hours behind the "norm". Add 48 hours and I say they *really* need fluids.

-Kathy

 

[Amykins]

Got two in my incubator right now that have "tacky" mucus membranes, and one of them keeps flipping over, so I think that dehydration is more common than people think. Many people think that duckinks and chicks have 72 hours to live off the yolk before needing water/food, but this is not always true, some do hatch mildly dehydrated, then add 48 hours on-top of that and they are in *serious* trouble. Of course I'm always also concerned about yolk sac infections, too, but the average owner will not be able to treat those unless they have something like Baytril or Cipro.

-Kathy

Being sticky and being shrink-wrapped are very different issues. I'm not saying that's definitely not the case, I'm saying that's not the likeliest cause of the problem. I wouldn't know without seeing them, and neither of us are qualified to make medical diagnoses sight unseen.

He asked if any of us have experienced this exact same thing before, and I have. Therefore I am just relaying my personal experience, my professional opinion, and the treatment that helped save Wobbles's life. The issue could be dire and my concern is with those babies, not with who is "right".


@AmandaVirginia , those are some adorable babies! Please take some more photos when they've been fluffed out, we could all use some squee therapy