Ducklings panting? Help!

[MaddieJoi]

Can anyone tell me how to help our week old ducklings? They seem to be panting. They have water they can dunk their heads in so I’m not sure what I need to do to help them. Maybe a bath would help so they could swim and cool down?

 

[Miss Lydia]

What’s the temp in your brooder? Can they get away from the heat lamp? Placing it on one end gives them the choice of laying under if cold or getting away if hot.

 

[Miss Lydia]

You can put them in a bath just make sure water isn’t cold. They can chill when not feathered in and water proof. Warm water for bath time.

 

[MaddieJoi]

What’s the temp in your brooder? Can they get away from the heat lamp? Placing it on one end gives them the choice of laying under if cold or getting away if hot.

I don’t know the temperature inside of the brooder. We have the light on one side so they can move away if they’re too warm but they seemed to be laying in the middle of the brooder and panting. We turned the light off and gave them a bigger bowl of water to see if it would help and it did.
After a little while they seemed to get cold and all huddled up again so I turned the light back on.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Always best to have a thermometer to keep tabs on the temp. They will let you know when they need heat as you saw.

 

[ruthhope]

I don’t know the temperature inside of the brooder. We have the light on one side so they can move away if they’re too warm but they seemed to be laying in the middle of the brooder and panting. We turned the light off and gave them a bigger bowl of water to see if it would help and it did.
After a little while they seemed to get cold and all huddled up again so I turned the light back on.

It's important to have a thermometer in a brooder with a heatlamp. The ability to control and change the ducklings' environmental temperature as they grow older, requires a thermometer.

You should be able to buy a digitally reading thermometer for your brooder. If your feed store doesn't have one, they stick them at Home Depot

 

[MaddieJoi]

It's important to have a thermometer in a brooder with a heatlamp. The ability to control and change the ducklings' environmental temperature as they grow older, requires a thermometer.

You should be able to buy a digitally reading thermometer for your brooder. If your feed store doesn't have one, they stick them at Home Depot

Will this one from our greenhouse work? The ducklings are a little over a week old. Is this too hot for them?

 

[MaddieJoi]

I can also raise the light to make it further away from them if you think I should do that?

They’re all very interested in the thermometer

 

[MaddieJoi]

Always best to have a thermometer to keep tabs on the temp. They will let you know when they need heat as you saw.

After having our greenhouse thermometer in the brooder for a couple hours it shows this as the temp under the light. I raised it higher and will check to see what the temp is in an hour. This is too hot, right?

 

[sandburRanch]

After having our greenhouse thermometer in the brooder for a couple hours it shows this as the temp under the light. I raised it higher and will check to see what the temp is in an hour. This is too hot, right?

65° - 70° is the temp i'd shoot for with ducks that age but gradually decrease the now temperature over a period of a couple of days to that lower temp . Something i would also do is cut several ventilation holes near the bottom around the perimeter . As warm air exits the top fresher cooler air will enter those openings .