Foamy Eye

[rbaker0345]

I have a really nice muscovy drake and when I say really nice, you muscovy people out there will know that i actually mean grotesquely ugly. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. Lets just say he is well carunckled. He is very healthy and I have a 1/4 ac pond which is also very healthy and clean. He bathes well, isn't sneezing, has no other symptoms. His eyes are so foamy, sometimes he has trouble seeing- as if the carunckles weren't bad enough for his eyesight.

My ducks free range. I feed them a mix of scratch grains and black oil sunflower seeds. He seems to get the corn stuck in his throat sometimes and will go into a sneezing fit then, but the foaminess doesn't seem to coincide with his eating. It seems to be all the time. Could he have allergies?

 

[Amiga]

He could just be susceptible to infection. Scratch and b.o.s.s. may not provide all the nutrients for optimum health, so his immune system may not be up to par. It depends on what else he is able to forage.

I would start giving him vitamins, and look for some sort of eyedrops or spray meant to treat eye problems.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Also he needs a good well rounded diet which he may not be getting by foraging this time of yr. some kind of All flock feed which has everything he needs in nutrients. You may want to try washing his eyes out with some kind of saline solution also.

 

[rbaker0345]

I just feel weird feeding my chickens and ducks a commercial feed. The protein in those feeds is derived from dead chickens. I have been trying to figure out how I could formulate a well-rounded feed for the winter when there are fewer insects and seeds to eat. I was thinking of adding meal worms to my mix. Does anyone know the digestable protein in black oil Sunflower seeds? We are still green here on the coast and there are still a lot of insects buzzing and crawling, but I think that everything probably loses nutrient value when the photoperiod goes down. Maybe I should grow them a winter garden with mixed greens.

 

[toadbriar]

IIRC Layena is a vegetarian feed and despite being a layer feed is safe for male birds to eat.

I've used Vetericyn Opthalmic Gel for foamy eyes with success.

I don't have any Muscovy but I do have a boxer dog, and his wrinkles and jowls need to be wiped or they get irritated with the potential for infection. I wonder if a similar process is occurring with your duck, where the fleshy overgrowth is creating crevices that are susceptible to infection, fungal or bacterial.

 

[Oregon Blues]

My ducks sometimes get foamy eye in the winter when their water is frozen. It's from not washing their faces enough.

You could try catching him and putting some neosporin in his eyes. Don't touch the tube to the duck. Squeeze the meds into his eye and twist it off. If the tube touches the duck, you've just contaminated your whole tube. Make sure he has access to plenty of clean water that he can get his whole head into.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

You can buy terramycin opthalmic ointment on the internet. Buy three tubes, you will need it. i use it for my chickens, ducks, geese, cats, and myself. Great stuff. It is very soothing and antibiotic. Whenever i have an issue with anyone having eye irritation or foaminess, it is my go-to med.

As for feed, i would suggest you provide some sort of flockraiser mix or feed specifically for waterfowl like Mazuri. i recently switched from regular scratch grains (that contain a lot of corn) to Scratch and Peck grain feed with no corn. Everyone here loves it - chickens, ducks, and geese. Adding the sunflower seed is good, also. i know a lot of people feed BOSS, but i get the hulled variety - more expensive but i don't want my bantam chickens to have to deal with the hulls. Also, with my ducks i give them peas in the evening with Brewers Yeast flakes to provide the extra niacin they need. My ducks don't have a very large free range area, so they need the extra nutrition. But honestly, it just sounds like your drake needs the terramycin. It should clear up the problem lickity split

Would love to see pics of your drake's carunckling.