Help! Duck health emergency question

[Ukeeducks]

We opened our coop yesterday to one of our two female ducks having died overnight. We thought she may have been egg bound as she had laid a soft egg 2 afternoons before and there’s one egg every morning so hard to tell who lays it.
Recently the females have been loosing feathers on their back/ under their wings & looking scruffy. We thought maybe they were moulting. See picture for how she was looking the days before. When dead she had white deposits by her opening (see photo) not sure if this was signs of being egg bound or live or what.
Today the other female seems to be limping, holding one foot up, looking scruffy. We are very worried about her as the other female passed so quickly so feel like we need to intervene fast. She has been laying eggs so we feel she isn’t egg bound. Maybe lice? Wet feather? Bumblefoot? Nitrient deficiency?

-They are kept in good conditions with good food and foraging, I sprinkle oyster shells around their pen periodically so they can forage for them if they want (maybe they need more?)
- they were born last July so are young and been raised very well.
- they have been producing eggs for a few months without issue except for some calcium bumps sometimes and the one soft egg.
- we had 4 males and 2 females overwinter while they were young but the males got aggressive and over sexual so 3 of the males were butchered last weekend, this may have stressed the remaining 3 out but they seemed calm and happy. Maybe too many males stressed the females out before this though although I’d been seperating them the weeks prior.
- we are new to this, it’s our first time having ducks and we live far from a vet so that’s not an option unless very necessary.

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

@casportpony @WVduckchick

 

[MochaDuck]

@Miss Lydia

 

[casportpony]

Very sorry for your loss. Is there any chance you could open up the deceased and take pictures of her insides? The color around her vent makes me think she might have had an infection.

 

[WVduckchick]

So sorry for your loss
She could have been over-mated.
Any possibility that they got into something poisonous?

 

[Miss Lydia]

I think @casportpony would he best to address this. She knows more about sickness and disease. I think pictures of your set up and pictures of the duck that’s still alive we need. What you are feeding and how long before you duck died was she having problems. I am very sorry for your loss.

 

[Ukeeducks]

Very sorry for your loss. Is there any chance you could open up the deceased and take pictures of her insides? The color around her vent makes me think she might have had an infection.

We have already buried her

 

[Ukeeducks]

We opened our coop yesterday to one of our two female ducks having died overnight. We thought she may have been egg bound as she had laid a soft egg 2 afternoons before and there’s one egg every morning so hard to tell who lays it.
Recently the females have been loosing feathers on their back/ under their wings & looking scruffy. We thought maybe they were moulting. See picture for how she was looking the days before. When dead she had white deposits by her opening (see photo) not sure if this was signs of being egg bound or live or what.
Today the other female seems to be limping, holding one foot up, looking scruffy. We are very worried about her as the other female passed so quickly so feel like we need to intervene fast. She has been laying eggs so we feel she isn’t egg bound. Maybe lice? Wet feather? Bumblefoot? Nitrient deficiency?

-They are kept in good conditions with good food and foraging, I sprinkle oyster shells around their pen periodically so they can forage for them if they want (maybe they need more?)
- they were born last July so are young and been raised very well.
- they have been producing eggs for a few months without issue except for some calcium bumps sometimes and the one soft egg.
- we had 4 males and 2 females overwinter while they were young but the males got aggressive and over sexual so 3 of the males were butchered last weekend, this may have stressed the remaining 3 out but they seemed calm and happy. Maybe too many males stressed the females out before this though although I’d been seperating them the weeks prior.
- we are new to this, it’s our first time having ducks and we live far from a vet so that’s not an option unless very necessary.

We have just bathed her in soapy warm water, toweled her off, and sprinkled some diatomaceous earth on her as was recommended to do incase it’s any sort of bug. We gave her a good once over and she has some white stuff around her vent and a cut on the one foot she was limping on. It stressed her out so we want to be careful not to stress her too much more, we put her in her coop rather than the pen and put the low heat lamp on with fresh ground, food, water. It was also recommended to keep her on clean straw and out of the pool for a few days so might bring her in to the greenhouse where it’s very dry and sheltered. We also heard to maybe put vasoline on her vent?
I’ll take pics of the pen and coop, the male is very healthy and seems totally fine.

 

[casportpony]

Worse case scenario to me is somehow the two are related somehow.

The skin color and discharge around the vent are telling me she had a major infection, but it's impossible to know if the source of the infection was in the reproductive tract or the intestines just from looking at the pictures. If in the intestines, the chance of it being contagious is greater than if in the reproductive tract.

When you processed the drakes, did you find any abnormalities?

 

[Ukeeducks]

Here is pics of their pen area and coop, she is in the coop so couldn’t get a great pic but is the brown duck.
They eat pellets plus the sprinkled oyster shells around their pen once in awhile, also greens from the garden often (I’ve been giving pak Choi a bit lately), and forage around the property.
I used to do a new pool and waters every day but now leave it for a day or 2 sometimes as I thought I was overdueing it, but maybe should go back to that, they always get fresh water, food, and straw every night in the coop. The straw that falls in the pen in the pool area I rake up once in a while but don’t worry about too much but maybe will start getting rid of that more often, under their coop is open for them during the day and has some dry straw that I don’t really change but it’s quite clean under there as they don’t spend much time there.

We opened our coop yesterday to one of our two female ducks having died overnight. We thought she may have been egg bound as she had laid a soft egg 2 afternoons before and there’s one egg every morning so hard to tell who lays it.
Recently the females have been loosing feathers on their back/ under their wings & looking scruffy. We thought maybe they were moulting. See picture for how she was looking the days before. When dead she had white deposits by her opening (see photo) not sure if this was signs of being egg bound or live or what.
Today the other female seems to be limping, holding one foot up, looking scruffy. We are very worried about her as the other female passed so quickly so feel like we need to intervene fast. She has been laying eggs so we feel she isn’t egg bound. Maybe lice? Wet feather? Bumblefoot? Nitrient deficiency?

-They are kept in good conditions with good food and foraging, I sprinkle oyster shells around their pen periodically so they can forage for them if they want (maybe they need more?)
- they were born last July so are young and been raised very well.
- they have been producing eggs for a few months without issue except for some calcium bumps sometimes and the one soft egg.
- we had 4 males and 2 females overwinter while they were young but the males got aggressive and over sexual so 3 of the males were butchered last weekend, this may have stressed the remaining 3 out but they seemed calm and happy. Maybe too many males stressed the females out before this though although I’d been seperating them the weeks prior.
- we are new to this, it’s our first time having ducks and we live far from a vet so that’s not an option unless very necessary.