Female duck not eating well - tube feeding questions

Do you also give her feed? She needs a well-balanced diet. Maybe try mixing some of the fish in with her feed just a small amount to see if she'll eat it that way. You def need to continue tube feeding her if she still isn't eating much.
She won't even touch the salmon if I mix any feed in with it. I tried Farmer's Helper (I think that's what it's called) as a treat feed and she won't touch that. I've tried sprinkling some of the Kaytee formula on the salmon and she won't touch it. Even tried running Mazuri through the blender so it's a powder and that's a big ol' no too.
 
Does she like duck food soaked in water? so that it's like a mash, sort of like the consistency of runny oatmeal/grits. Or mazuri floating in water?
 
Does she like duck food soaked in water? so that it's like a mash, sort of like the consistency of runny oatmeal/grits. Or mazuri floating in water?
Sadly no. I've mixed up the Kaytee formula and tried to get her to just eat it on her own and she just flings it at me. I even tried faking her out by soaking some of her baked fish in warm water to make something like fish flavored tea, and using that to make the formula. I thought maybe if it tasted like fish she'd eat it on her own. Nope. She just flings it around and walks away.
They were on Scratch & Peck feed for over a year. I did add water to it and let the grains soak up the water in the refrigerator overnight method. They liked that pretty well, until they didn't. Then the price got to be a bit too high to "waste" it. (Not really wasting since the outside ducks and chickens will eat any leftovers.) But still, it got too expensive for them not to eat much of it. They liked some Dr. Pol kind for a while but then we got a bag that smelled like maybe the recipe had changed, they stopped liking it. That may be part of what triggered this phase with Bill Bill. I was transitioning from the Scratch & Peck back to Mazuri and tried Majestic Waterfowl 's suggestion of making a powder that gets mixed in with treat type foods that they like. Most of the girls were fine with that. They may be washing the powder off in the water but they're still eating. Bill wanted nothing to do with my "trick food".
 
Sounds to like she is one spoiled duckie and if she wasn't where she is now I would say give her one choice and let her get hungry.

Why do you have some ducks inside and some outside? Do the inside ducks get any sunshine? Do you supplement any B vitamins?
 
Sounds to like she is one spoiled duckie and if she wasn't where she is now I would say give her one choice and let her get hungry.

Why do you have some ducks inside and some outside? Do the inside ducks get any sunshine? Do you supplement any B vitamins?
Probably a long ridiculous story with them. Basically, Bill didn't have any clutchmates that hatched with her and ended up imprinting on me. Then we ended up with one more lone egg, she hatched over a month after our last ducklings. She became Bill's indoor sister. Others have come in due to injuries. They have several UVA/B sun lamps that they lounge under. I check the light from the lamps once a month with a UV checker thing to make sure they're still making the right light.

Bill's interest in treats food seemed slightly better last night and today. She's still definitely not eating enough on her own to gain any weight though. I'm planning to bump up to 3 tube feedings today. Hopefully she'll get up to a good weight soon and I can go back to trying to find a commercial feed that she'll eat on her own.
 
That makes sense I had a Muscovy duckling imprint on me since he was a single hatch and his mama tried to kill him. Thankfully at 3 months we got him some females and he went outside to live with them and the rest of the flock. He’s 12 yrs old now and still thinks I am his mama.
That’s a good idea feeding her 3x a day until she is eating good on her own again. Hopefully that will be soon. I hope you can find a feed she’ll eat.
 
That makes sense I had a Muscovy duckling imprint on me since he was a single hatch and his mama tried to kill him. Thankfully at 3 months we got him some females and he went outside to live with them and the rest of the flock. He’s 12 yrs old now and still thinks I am his mama.
That’s a good idea feeding her 3x a day until she is eating good on her own again. Hopefully that will be soon. I hope you can find a feed she’ll eat.
Bill would tolerate being around other ducklings but acted like she was helping me do my ducklings chores. Her little sister, Pipsqueak, she's an odd one. She definitely imprinted on the human family even though she was always around Bill. I've always been curious about what she sees Bill as because she absolutely HATES ducks. If she sees her reflection she screams her alarm quack because she thinks there's a duck near her. She tolerates the other 3 indoor ducks now but wasn't happy about any of them at first.

I was reading through the tube feeding instructions threads again today and got myself more confused about how much to feed. I saw no more than 23 ml per pound of body weight 2-4x daily. But I think Majestic Waterfowl said no more than 90 ml daily for a duck weighing 6-9 lbs. I'm guessing the "no more than" is because the formula is very nutrient rich and their body can only process however much at a time? Obviously not wanting to overstuff their crop too. I don't want to underfeed her but don't want to make her sick from feeding too much too often either. At least she's still drinking well on her own.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom