Hello all,
My duck Doug has had a rough week, he sprained his leg after an accident 4 days ago and now isn’t walking at all. We have some family with young children visiting. I don’t have any kids around my brids and never have until this week. My rule is no chasing or holding any of the chickens or ducks. Monday morning me and visiting youngins were letting everyone out of their coops and one of the kiddos grabbed my Pekin duck (after I had turned around to fill feed buckets) and dropped him. I didn’t see the drop but one of the older girls told me the 9 y/o boy (he’s an average height kid) held Doug on his back and when he started to flap just let him go......apparently thinking somehow he’d magically land on his feet?? Unfortunately at Dougs expense, the kids got to see why my no holding the birds rule exists. I was told he landed on his right leg pretty hard and I saw him immediately start limping after. The boy, like I mentioned isn’t very tall but I know ducks legs are pretty fragile. I took him to an avian vet 2 days later because I was worried it was broken. Vet checked him over and told me it was just sprained, gave me some pain meds and sent me on my way. This vet was a 2 hour drive from my house and I’m sure it was stressful for Doug being in the car for 4ish hours round trip. My reason for mentioning that is because I’m wondering if maybe that trip took it out of him and the stress from the trip could be contributing to him not walking? He’s been home for a day and 1/2 and is not using both legs. Just sitting in one spot of the duck house, not even attempting to stand anymore. Nothing in his diet has changed, only difference is the pain meds. I have no idea what to do at this point, any advice from y’all would be greatly appreciated. He’s only 7 months old and I’d hate for this to be something permanent that’s developed.
My duck Doug has had a rough week, he sprained his leg after an accident 4 days ago and now isn’t walking at all. We have some family with young children visiting. I don’t have any kids around my brids and never have until this week. My rule is no chasing or holding any of the chickens or ducks. Monday morning me and visiting youngins were letting everyone out of their coops and one of the kiddos grabbed my Pekin duck (after I had turned around to fill feed buckets) and dropped him. I didn’t see the drop but one of the older girls told me the 9 y/o boy (he’s an average height kid) held Doug on his back and when he started to flap just let him go......apparently thinking somehow he’d magically land on his feet?? Unfortunately at Dougs expense, the kids got to see why my no holding the birds rule exists. I was told he landed on his right leg pretty hard and I saw him immediately start limping after. The boy, like I mentioned isn’t very tall but I know ducks legs are pretty fragile. I took him to an avian vet 2 days later because I was worried it was broken. Vet checked him over and told me it was just sprained, gave me some pain meds and sent me on my way. This vet was a 2 hour drive from my house and I’m sure it was stressful for Doug being in the car for 4ish hours round trip. My reason for mentioning that is because I’m wondering if maybe that trip took it out of him and the stress from the trip could be contributing to him not walking? He’s been home for a day and 1/2 and is not using both legs. Just sitting in one spot of the duck house, not even attempting to stand anymore. Nothing in his diet has changed, only difference is the pain meds. I have no idea what to do at this point, any advice from y’all would be greatly appreciated. He’s only 7 months old and I’d hate for this to be something permanent that’s developed.
