- Thread starter
- #11
Mimi13
fuhgettaboutit
Where to begin.How is she doing by now? Did she lay another egg?
Yes, even my drakes help themselves at the Calcium bar from time to time. I believe they know what they're doing! Like us, when we crave for salt after working outside on a hot day and sweating out gallons…
So you're feeding crumbles to everybody? - I started with crumbles too, but quickly switched to pellets, which turned out to be the favorite for the ducks. Whenever i now try to feed them crumbles (the local feed mill inists to give me samples) they look at me with that »You want to poison us?« look, try a bit, spit it out and then run to the waterer to clean out their bills. It is not the taste they dislike, it is the texture. I ground up some pellets for this year's ducklings - yes, i admit: I have fed ground up layer pellets to my ducklings and they grew up faster than weed, so shut-up y'all! - The grown ups would not touch the duckling's feed bowl, not even when i mixed ground up cat-food under the pellets.
The main reason why i tried the pellets was that my ducks wasted almost ½ of their crumbles: It fell out out of their bills to the ground, it ended up as a slimy mud at the bottom of the water bowl, it was a total mess. - I did tell you that ducks are messy eaters?
With the pellets there is so much less wasted feed! Still some is lost, but much much less.
Sorry about the excursion to the pellets,
back to Petey: Panting is not a good sign, unfortunately! - It means that she is feeling too hot and is trying to lower her body temperature. Duck and dogs don't have sweat glands in their skin and pant to evaporate their saliva in their mouth to cool their blood. Other than dogs, ducks have a second mechanism to cool down: Their legs and feet! On hot days you can see Bazilla duck just standing in a bowl of cold water to cool down. She just stands there for an hour, then hops out, continue to do duck chores and hops back in when she gets hot again. Have you tried to offer her cold water - not with ice, just tap water cold?
She may has developed a fever, which can lead to leg cramps. I had that last year with Bazilla, her legs were locked behind her and she could no longer stand. Had her in a cold bath for ~2 hours and suddenly she went back to semi-normal.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/white-layer-duck-unable-to-use-her-legs.1334200/
By the way, by looking at the pictures you have posted i don't think her foot is swollen at all. The white layers do have clumsy looking feet - like the Pekin ducks too . The six White Layer feet here are all looking different in size and shape, it seems they adjust to how the individual duck is using them by growing additional tissues.
Oh yes, she laid another egg. It was a dramatic morning in how it all came about. Read about it Here. I posted it in My Love Affair With Ducks! I’m convinced Petey will be the center of attention no matter what. Diva Duck!
Back before I had chicks mixed in with adult birds, I fed Purina Layer with Omega 3 pellet feed...to both female and the few males I had. But once the bitties started eating with their broody mothers I switched to Purina All Flock. No where around me sold it in pellets, only crumble, even though I saw on Purina’s website that they made the All Flock in pellet form. After about 3 1/2 years of feeding Purina, TSC started being really slack about their stock and seemed to only have old feed, like 4-5 months old. The crumbles also seemed to be more “fines” than crumbles. So I started looking around for another brand. I decided several months ago to switch to Kalmbach Flock Maker crumbles. It’s a 20% feed like the All Flock. The Kalmbach crumbles is a real crumble, not a near powdered feed. However, I am now having difficulty with the feed store I found to keep the Flock Maker in stock. It pisses me off that these stores don’t realize the seriousness/importance of keeping birds on the same feed and not bouncing from on to another. I’ll step off my soapbox now. But, yes, I want to change back to pellets because you are right, these dang ducks’ waterer has about an inch of feed in the bottom of it each time I empty it. And there is so much of the fines around all the chickens’ feeders that I’m at war with the d@mn ants. Horns are now sprouting out of my head cause I’m so mad about it.
That ankle joint is definitely swollen and even feels like it has fluid in it. However, I am happy to report that Petey is outside with her buddies, confined to their run, and is doing very good. Provided she continues doing well today, I will leave her with the others.
Maybe panting wasn’t the correct word to use, but that’s what it looked like. Here is a video showing what I was referring to. You will have to zoom in on her, past the dog worn ottoman, to see her mouth and body, and hear her breathing. But despite what you see, she is completely fine...fine as wine! She didn’t skip a beat when I put her down into the pool this morning, right after I took this video.
Let me know what you think.