Female duck not eating well - tube feeding questions

[Miss Lydia]

How funny!!! Great to hear she’s getting stronger. She sure sounds normal in all duck ways and sounds very spoiled to me

 

[KCNC06]

I wanted to come back with an update on this ridiculous duck. It's been over a year struggling to get this quack head to gain and then maintain. I still don't understand it. She was going up and down with her weight even with the tube feedings. She would gain, and then she'd "vomit" after I fed her at least once a day, and she'd start losing again. The vomiting was so violent. The way she shook her head around, flinging the food everywhere. I was terrified that she'd aspirate.
Anyway. The vomiting issue seems to have finally resolved. Nothing like that for several months now. Today she was up to 3.73 lbs! Her highest weight in over a year!!! The most she's ever weighed was 4 lbs but I'm not sure how accurate that was since it was weighing myself holding her and then weighing myself alone and subtracting. Now I have a baby scale for her so I'm confident her weight is accurate.

Her appetite seems close to normal. She's even eating duck food pellets...as long as I grind it into a powder and trick her into eating it by mixing it with stuff she likes like baked salmon. The thing I can't figure out is, if I stop the feedings completely, she immediately loses weight. I've cut back to one tube feeding per day, just 60 ml of formula, and with that she gains and/or maintains. But if I cut that one feeding out, her weight starts dropping. I don't understand it! Watching her, it looks like she's eating like a little piggy. Her energy is CRAZY. Her personality is like it was when she was a baby before she started laying eggs and got all hormonal and crabby. I can't figure out how one 60 ml feeding per day makes such a difference with her weight. I went 5 days without giving her any tube feedings and her weight went from 3.63 lbs down to 3.33 lbs.

I've kind of given up and accepted that the one feeding is just going to have to be part of our routine. I don't mind it, I just don't understand it. Still, no other symptoms of anything that I can find. No symptoms of anything other than being a brat who loves attention I guess.

 

[casportpony]

Thanks for the update! Wow, you're dedicated! What are you tube feeding?

 

[KCNC06]

Thanks for the update! Wow, you're dedicated! What are you tube feeding?

This little quack head is like my baby. I started charting her weight every day along with what time and how much she ate back at the beginning of all this. Never guessed I would end up needing a dang notebook almost. But with any of them, I always tell them I'll do whatever I can to keep them as long as I can.

Anyway. For the formula, I'm mostly still using the Kaytee baby formula you recommended. When she was vomiting and losing weight despite the feedings, I'd cut down on how much I fed her because I wasn't sure what was causing it. During those times I added...dang it. I just forgot the name. It's a critical care omnivore formula. Oxbow? I've tried using chick starter and that works pretty well but having to grind it into a fine powder is annoying. The Kaytee formula is expensive but so easy.

Whatever was wrong with her that made her have almost no appetite seems to be resolved. For now at least. She's so fast going for the food now. When we catch little fish from our creek for them, I have to hold her back so her sister has a chance to get some. That does NOT go over well! She'll shaky neck pounce on me and fuss at me for hours after I dare to let her sister catch and eat some fish. Such a brat!

 

[casportpony]

What size tube are you using?

 

[KCNC06]

What size tube are you using?

I think I've been using a 16 Fr recently. The 18 seems so big, and that was the largest size I could find. I've checked a few of my other ducks' throats to compare what I see in hers to others, and her quack hole just seems to take up so much more space in her throat. Which I know sounds weird and ridiculous. But all the other ducks I've looked at, I feel like I could easily get a huge tube down their throat. Hers though, the 16 looks big. I know it's not. I've seen her eat fish wider than this, but that's her choosing to swallow it vs me aiming for her food shoot.

I do feel like her weight now is pretty darn good for her. She's always been small. I can't see her breast bone anymore and she actually gets a good size food boob eating on her own sometimes.

 

[casportpony]

I use a size 30 to tube crumbles, and it does not get plugged. Let me see how small of a duck it works with,

 

[KCNC06]

I use a size 30 to tube crumbles, and it does not get plugged. Let me see how small of a duck it works with,

Wow! A 30 sounds HUGE! Like a chest tube!! But I can definitely see how that would make feedings easier and faster. My sister was shocked that I used a 16 as a feeding tube. She's used to using tiny tubes, like 8's but she's also using them for human children (She's an RN in a hospital so not weird.)

It's been about a week since the last time I gave her a tube feeding and she's up to 3.94 lbs this morning. So she's FINALLY gaining on her own!!! I'm honestly not sure what changed after so long. The only thing I've been doing different is adding a little bit of bee pollen crumbles in with her bedtime food. I started giving her the bee pollen about a month before she started having more stability with her weight. Up until then it was a constant up and down with her weight. This past week she has started acting like she thinks it's egg laying season. She hasn't laid an egg in almost 2.5 years, I don't really want her to go through all that again. Making eggs seems so hard on their little bodies.