Feathers and waterproofing

[Puddin816]

My Ancona duckling absolutely love water but the problem is I don’t think she is waterproof. She is 6 weeks as of yesterday and she only has about 1/2 of her adult feathers which is a bit of a concern to me as she’s had the same feathers for about a week now and not gained any new ones yet. But even her adult feathers just seem to absorb water and not repel. Her down especially stays soaked. She seams ok with it though otherwise and I dry her off as soon as she gets out it’s just making me a bit worried as I live on a large river so if she goes down there something could go wrong while I’m not around.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Like a predator? I'd be more worried about that than her feathers being wet. We live above a Mountain river and mine cannot go down to it. Snapping turtles, flying predators etc.
as for her feathers what are you feeding her? any supplements?

 

[Yardmom]

Does she try to preen her feathers? I would also be cautious about allowing your duck near a river. Flowing water and an abundance of predators.

 

[Puddin816]

Like a predator? I'd be more worried about that than her feathers being wet. We live above a Mountain river and mine cannot go down to it. Snapping turtles, flying predators etc.
as for her feathers what are you feeding her? any supplements?

Right now she’s having a mix of these two feeds with sunflower seeds, carrots, spinach, parsley, minnows, and coconut oil on occasion.

 

[Puddin816]

Does she try to preen her feathers? I would also be cautious about allowing your duck near a river. Flowing water and an abundance of predators.

Yes, she does

Does she try to preen her feathers? I would also be cautious about allowing your duck near a river. Flowing water and an abundance of predators.

she does preen her feather, almost if not more than about 5x a day. I don’t let her into the water unless I’m there, the part of the river I live on is a foot - 3 foot deep max and she stays right next to my feet the whole time.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Feed looks good. Maybe get some poultry cell and try her on that for about a month and see if that makes a difference. She should be fully feathered by now.

 

[Puddin816]

Feed looks good. Maybe get some poultry cell and try her on that for about a month and see if that makes a difference. She should be fully feathered by now.

exactly that’s what’s concerning me is that she should be fully feathered. She just looks like a drowned rat right now haha

 

[Miss Lydia]

Poor little one. Hopefully, some poultry cell or added vitamins will help.

 

[BelovedBirds]

My Ancona duckling absolutely love water but the problem is I don’t think she is waterproof. She is 6 weeks as of yesterday and she only has about 1/2 of her adult feathers which is a bit of a concern to me as she’s had the same feathers for about a week now and not gained any new ones yet. But even her adult feathers just seem to absorb water and not repel. Her down especially stays soaked. She seams ok with it though otherwise and I dry her off as soon as she gets out it’s just making me a bit worried as I live on a large river so if she goes down there something could go wrong while I’m not around.

She's still young. Is she preening herself when she gets out of the water? Does her oil gland looking okay?

Ducklings shouldn't be unsupervised in water until 8 weeks.
It definitely isn't safe for her to be out free ranging on a river. Predators, drowning, it's all a possibility.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Right now she’s having a mix of these two feeds with sunflower seeds, carrots, spinach, parsley, minnows, and coconut oil on occasion.

Do you supplement niacin? Mixing the duckling feed with the chick feed is going to reduce the niacin percentage a little.
If she's getting a lot of treats, that's also going to water down the nutrients from the feed a bit