duckling not pooping as much??

[quackkquack_]

EDIT: haha another edit, third edit lol
so just figured out why shes been so upset and not potting as much.. its because I changed her food!! She really loves her chick food and I noticed shes trying to eat anything she can find and NOT her new food. So I decided to give her some of her old food and shes talking up a storm and dove in right away! Not sure what to do because it contains 20% protein and she already has angel wing.. I could try mixing the foods again and see if it helps at all. Please let me know your thoughts!

So my little Newt (which surprise! Newt is a girl!) has been worrying me a little bit..
Since I accidentally gave her too much protein (which she has angel wing in her left wing but its being treated at the moment, her wings do seem a bit big for her body but she should be fine when shes bigger and stronger) we had to quickly switch her onto her adult food.
Shes currently 5 weeks old and her adult food we planned on getting was out of stock and so we had to get something else with 10% protein instead of 15%. We plan on getting her 15% protein food once its in stock or if we find it somewhere else.
Newt has been on the food for about 3 days now and I've noticed her poops have changed from brown-and-white, kinda runny poop to a dark-ish green, less runny poop.
(Her food is Flock Party, Garden Grains, the only one with the least amount of protein, the other one was 17%. The one we want to get her is Dumor Grower/Finisher, 15% protein)
Also anytime she goes swimming, she poops A LOT but today she went swimming and she only pooped twice and then she went swimming again and didn't poop at all. She also has been eating her pine shavings (dunno if shes swallowing them or just mouthing them, I've noticed she has put them in her mouth and not spit them out, although she did throw up a piece of pine shaving around a week ago) I have let her scavenge in dirt and grass to help her break whatever is in her crop up.
One more thing, she peeps/honks/quacks (lol) really loud when I walk away because shes imprinted on me but when I come back shes happy and makes her little happy noises. Lately, even if she sees me or if shes nibbling on my hand, she makes quiet sounds that sound like distress calls but yknow.. quieter.

EDIT: Also I've noticed shes bobbing her head a lot lately. I know they do that when they are happy or flirting with other ducks but shes a duckling and I dunno if shes doing it because shes happy or what lol.
Another edit: sometimes she just randomly does the quiet distress quacking, she was sleeping in my hand before she did it.

So my main three questions/concerns are..
1. Are her poops okay? And is it normal for her to be pooping less?
2. I know they scavenge and mouth things they aren't supposed to but I would assume since shes 5 weeks and has had pine shavings since she hatched she'd know not to mouth/eat them anymore.. is there anything I could do? Switch her bedding to something else? (Probably not the best idea to switch it to a blanket due to their poop but she loves blankets and my shirts)
3. The quiet distress calls, could she possibly be in pain? Shes currently quiet while I'm typing this and sometimes shes quiet and sometimes shes not. I haven't ever really heard her make these calls at all until recently. We thought maybe she was cold since she was also fluffing up her feathers (we took out the heater yesterday since she didn't have much room to walk with it and I've heard around 4-6 weeks they'll be fine without it. Our house stays pretty warm)

Thank you!

 

[picklestheduck]

Sorry you didn’t get a response! And also sorry since I am unsure about this, but hopefully my reply will bump it up in the threads for others to see and hopefully help you.

 

[Yardmom]

It sounds like your main concern was figured out. I'm unsure about the connection between protein amounts and angel wing. I have not researched it in detail. As far as the distress call it is likely do to loneliness. Ducks are flock animals. Do you have any other ducks?

 

[quackkquack_]

It sounds like your main concern was figured out. I'm unsure about the connection between protein amounts and angel wing. I have not researched it in detail. As far as the distress call it is likely do to loneliness. Ducks are flock animals. Do you have any other ducks?

No sadly we don't have any other ducks at the moment, out of 14 eggs, only Newt hatched.
We have three other eggs on day 10 at the moment.
I'm thinking the quiet distress call I was talking about was because she was hungry and didn't want to eat her new food since once I gave her the old food, she stopped with the quiet distress calls. Plus she tried to eat anything and everything before that, luckily I realized only less than a day when she stopped eating.

We did try to find someone with a call duck around her age but the only person that had them in our area already sold them all so they gave us some eggs instead.

 

[quackkquack_]

Does anyone by chance know what's going on with Newt?

In the past, she used to get water all in her food and she started drooling a ton of water and saliva out of her mouth and nose, that was the only symptom, nothing else, besides that she was perfectly fine.
I moved her food bowl farther away from her water and sat it up higher and ever since she's been fine and hasn't gotten any water in her food so I assumed the water in her food was the problem.

Since she went a while without eating since she wanted her normal chick food (didn't eat for around a day, we were trying to switch her to the 10% protein food as listed above), when she first got it back she went crazy and got a ton of water in it so I have to keep switching it until she finally calmed down.
It's been about two/three days now since then and shes only had a tad bit of water in her food once.
Just today, she got up from a nap and yawned and water/saliva came up from her throat and drooled out of her mouth but she swallowed it back. This is the second or third time I've seen it happen today and I'm worried for my little one.
Shes had no other symptoms. I've read sometimes they drool some of it back up from drinking or eating too fast and yeah she eats and drinks pretty fast sometimes but sometimes it just happens randomly.

Hoping I can get some answers and that she'll be okay!

 

[quackkquack_]

Does anyone by chance know what's going on with Newt?

In the past, she used to get water all in her food and she started drooling a ton of water and saliva out of her mouth and nose, that was the only symptom, nothing else, besides that she was perfectly fine.
I moved her food bowl farther away from her water and sat it up higher and ever since she's been fine and hasn't gotten any water in her food so I assumed the water in her food was the problem.

Since she went a while without eating since she wanted her normal chick food (didn't eat for around a day, we were trying to switch her to the 10% protein food as listed above), when she first got it back she went crazy and got a ton of water in it so I have to keep switching it until she finally calmed down.
It's been about two/three days now since then and shes only had a tad bit of water in her food once.
Just today, she got up from a nap and yawned and water/saliva came up from her throat and drooled out of her mouth but she swallowed it back. This is the second or third time I've seen it happen today and I'm worried for my little one.
Shes had no other symptoms. I've read sometimes they drool some of it back up from drinking or eating too fast and yeah she eats and drinks pretty fast sometimes but sometimes it just happens randomly.

Hoping I can get some answers and that she'll be okay!

Does anyone by chance know what's going on with Newt?

In the past, she used to get water all in her food and she started drooling a ton of water and saliva out of her mouth and nose, that was the only symptom, nothing else, besides that she was perfectly fine.
I moved her food bowl farther away from her water and sat it up higher and ever since she's been fine and hasn't gotten any water in her food so I assumed the water in her food was the problem.

Since she went a while without eating since she wanted her normal chick food (didn't eat for around a day, we were trying to switch her to the 10% protein food as listed above), when she first got it back she went crazy and got a ton of water in it so I have to keep switching it until she finally calmed down.
It's been about two/three days now since then and shes only had a tad bit of water in her food once.
Just today, she got up from a nap and yawned and water/saliva came up from her throat and drooled out of her mouth but she swallowed it back. This is the second or third time I've seen it happen today and I'm worried for my little one.
Shes had no other symptoms. I've read sometimes they drool some of it back up from drinking or eating too fast and yeah she eats and drinks pretty fast sometimes but sometimes it just happens randomly.

Hoping I can get some answers and that she'll be okay!

Today again when I was letting her free roam and I picked her up from her brooder to let her out, she had some water pour out of her nose and mouth but she swallowed it again. A few seconds later, it happened again.
Shes acting perfectly fine (besides when the water pours out, she stands still like shes scared or nervous), her poops look fine (brown and white and mushy like they were since she was a baby)

She also still wont eat the new food, she eats the chick food and ignores the new food and just eats around it. Not sure what to do about that..

 

[picklestheduck]

@Quatie
@Miss Lydia
@Aunt Angus
Do y’all have any thoughts?

 

[Quatie]

First of all, 20% is not too much protein. Ducks need that much protein and I would stick to it. 15% is way too low for growing ducks. The angel wing was likely caused by genetics or another issue. When it is is cause by high protein, it is 28-32% protein found in those levels in turkey and game bird feed.

 

[Quatie]

The second worry I would have, is the food you switched it to, it looks more like treats and a feed that would require grit. That is just from what I could Google. I would provide some chick grit to make sure it is not getting impacted from the feed. I would stick to the 20% crumble feed for your ducks.

If you go on metzer's website, they actually recommend feeding them 22% for the first few weeks. And if you only have 20%, they say to keep them on 20% for even longer. And they recommend growing ducks on a 19% feed.

Sorry for the 2 posts. I am running about doing things.

 

[quackkquack_]

First of all, 20% is not too much protein. Ducks need that much protein and I would stick to it. 15% is way too low for growing ducks. The angel wing was likely caused by genetics or another issue. When it is is cause by high protein, it is 28-32% protein found in those levels in turkey and game bird feed.

Oh! I was really worried I was giving her too much protein.
I did think the angel wing was caused by genetics since she got it when she was pretty tiny.

The second worry I would have, is the food you switched it to, it looks more like treats and a feed that would require grit. That is just from what I could Google. I would provide some chick grit to make sure it is not getting impacted from the feed. I would stick to the 20% crumble feed for your ducks.

If you go on metzer's website, they actually recommend feeding them 22% for the first few weeks. And if you only have 20%, they say to keep them on 20% for even longer. And they recommend growing ducks on a 19% feed.

Sorry for the 2 posts. I am running about doing things.

I'll stick to her current chick feed until shes more bigger and probably will use the other feed for the wild ducks that come to our pond since she really dislikes that feed.
But thank you! I tried to let her scavenge in a small bowl of dirt and tiny stones I got outside (since we didn't have chick grit at the time and we don't have an enclosure for her outside and shes starting to act more sassy and doesn't wanna follow me quite often anymore) but she didn't really like it so we'll get getting chick grit tomorrow then!