I could really do with some advice.
Two weeks ago my lovely little drake Frankie passed away just short of his 12th birthday. He had been getting a bit run down in his last month or two and was looking a little scruffy with a case of wet feather, and then one morning I noticed he’d developed an eye/sinus infection. I took him straight to the bird Vet and he was prescribed some antibiotics and eye drops for the infection, and also some oral Moxidectin (similar to Ivermectin) in case his wet feather had been caused by mites or parasites.
After a day or two his eye had cleared up and he seemed to be improving, but in the days that followed he went rapidly downhill... He started to become a little wobbly when walking, and over the next few days slowed right down to the point where he couldn’t keep up with his flock mates and they started to leave him behind when foraging. One week after he was given the Moxidectin he was resting all the time and barely getting up unless he had to, and by that evening he seemed to be in pain so I made the tough decision to have him put to sleep.
In the 12 years I’ve owned my ducks they’ve never had mites before, and I’ve never de-wormed them. Until recently, they’ve always seemed completely healthy, and whenever they’ve had reason to go to the vet he’s taken a little poo sample and checked for anything unusual as part of the check up. The results have always been clear, and the vet (my previous bird vet) never suggested giving worming treatments so I never saw any need.
Although Frankie was an old boy, who had lived a long healthy life, I was really confused as to why he went downhill so suddenly, so I looked up info on de-worming and found a few different web sites saying that ducks can die from worming treatments if they have a high load of worms.
https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/the-importance-of-worming-ducks.html
“Another serious consideration is that if a duck is carrying loads of worms and they are treated, the toxins the worms release into a duck's system as they die can and will kill birds which all adds up to how important it is to regularly worm your ducks and this needs to be at least twice a year.”
I feel so awful that I haven’t been de-worming my ducks all their lives and want to do whatever it takes to keep them healthy, but after reading this I’m really terrified to treat my other 6 older ducks with Moxidectin in case it harms them. I love them so much. It would break my heart if I caused them any harm.
Has anyone here have experience with this kind of thing?
Did the worming treatment kill my poor Frankie boy?
