Duck neuro problems?

Gwyndarlin

In the Brooder
Feb 8, 2018
5
23
34
Hi friends!

So I am a forum lurker but rarely post anything.
I own chickens and ducks both on separate peices of property and have donkeys in to protect my free range ducks.

In the past week we have noticed one of our ducks acting strange.
He’s walking cross legged like one foot crossing in front of the other and it shows when he is off balance. For a while he was just walking that way but since that started he has started doing something else. He keeps stopping every twenty feet or so and spreading his wings out and holding himself up with his wings and beak on the ground. He almost shakes a little while it’s happening.
He’s like that for a second and then keeps going.

Yesterday he stopped coming to the fence to feed and we have had to separate his food. He’s interacting well with everyone but he’s obviously having problems. Today he ate while sitting down and just moved his head around to reach his crumbles.
He seems to swim fine but is definitely less active.
Any thoughts?

Added details: our pond is super low these days, not sure if that might affect him but we have other ducks who are fine.

We changed their food to a higher protein blend this past week

He doesn’t show signs of trauma but we have a young donkey that bucks a lot.


I’ve also considered putting him with the chickens so that predators can’t get him but I don’t want to spread a disease to my egg layers.
 
Ducks and chickens can’t transmit most neutral diseases to each other, plus if there’s Newcastle or Mareks there they’re already infected.
 
Do you have a vet in your area to take him to? Is it possible that he got into something toxic? If the pond level is low, it's possible he could have gotten botulism from eating rotting plant material at the bottom.
 

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