Duckling with broken foot! Help!

[SwedishDude99]

Hi everyone! So my aunt has a mother duck who made her nest on the edge of their pool. The ducklings hatched about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and one of the ducklings has a broken leg as of a couple days ago. My aunt doesn't keep poultry or waterfowl, so they are bringing the duckling up here for me to try to help it recover. They tried calling animal control and they won't come and take it. So my question is, how do I go about fixing this? What are it's chances of living through this? I've heard that sometimes it is better to cull the duckling to spare it further pain. Any advice please???

 

[SwedishDude99]

Forgot to add: the duckling is goin to be here tomorrow so post as sok as you can. Thanks!!!

 

[Amiga]

There are wildlife rehabbers around. I would try to contact a friendly one. There is a migratory bird act that means only permitted individuals are supposed to work with these birds. That said, I would want to try to help until I could get the duckling to a rehabber.

Something like stiff foam with which to make a splint, or a coffee stirrer, even some vet wrap - don't wrap anything too tight - could support the leg while it heals. I like using herbal ointments like comfrey and Traumeel to assist healing.

Okay, I need to ring off. Keep us posted.

 

[SwedishDude99]

Okay thank you! I will keep you posted

 

[Amiga]

Okay thank you! I will keep you posted

 

[SwedishDude99]

I haven't got the duckling yet- should be here within 2 hours though. I have a couple more questions. Looking at other threads, people say that you may need to 'set' the bone back in place. How would I go about doing this? Or should I leave it be and just splint it? And one more question- will the little guy be able to swim if he has a splint on? Would swimming be good for him? Thanks for helping me!

 

[SwedishDude99]

The duckling is here. He/she sits with it's leg stretched out behind it. It can put weight on its leg, but it chooses not to. I have called a few rehab places near me, but none of them will take the duckling. I don't understand why not. I will continue to try to find a rehabber who will take it. If I can't find one who will take it, I guess I will end up keeping it. After being fed and kept under human care, I'm assuming it would be cruel to dump it back in the wild, right? Should I let him/her swim in a little pond? I'm just trying to figure out what to do here. I've never dealt with something like this before. I want to help him in every possible way I can.

 

[Amiga]

I would let him or her swim in a tub of warmish - 80˚F - water, and observe how the leg moves. It could be dislocated, could be broken.

See if any of this information helps.

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

 

[SwedishDude99]

Thankyou! So the leg is broken. I splinted its leg and have been giving it niacin in its water. It has stood up a couple of times today, but not for more than a minute. I think by the time I take the brace off, it would be cruel to release it back into the wild because it would be used to bot havin to find food. It is terrified of me, and tries to bite me when I pick it up. So since I don't think releasing it back into the wild would be the right thing to do, I want to attempt to socialize it. I don't need it to love to be held or anything, but it would be cool if I could get it to the point where it would come up and eat from my hand. So would it be ok to hold it right now while it's leg is broken, or would it be best to wait until it is healed?

 

[SwedishDude99]

Bump