Help! Duckling keeps opening her mouth!

[Miss Lydia]

Let's be kind and remember that there are multiple reasons why someone might have a lone duck. The OP hasn't verified that it's the only duck - it was a question.
Adult ducks can swim in colder water, but ducklings can have issues due to not being totally feathered and how their metabolism works. Plenty of threads where the only thing they did differently was to give them ice cold water and the ducklings seized and died.

 

[Cocelean]

I would stop the ice water. It can shock the body and she could have other issues.

What feed is she on? What's her set up like? It almost sounds like overheating and she's panting to cool down. The room temp would be hot for humans. I'd also suggest less time in the bath tub. She might not seem like shes over exerting herself, but ducks do silly things. Normally ducklings swim or splash a little and then run around to jump back into the water they aren't in constantly for extended periods. Is this your only duck?

She’s on a grower feed for ducks and geese and she’s in a 3x3 c&c grid brooder in my room with a tub of water with a cut out hole to put her head in. I’ll definitely decrease her time spent in water! I should’ve clarified but by warm it was lukewarm - putting cold water alone would’ve been freezing especially with the weather so I’d mix it till it was just about warm since during the time she’d be in there it would cool (because she would be in there for too long that id done knowing - she was never unattended though, I’d sit there with her while she swam about - and whenever she’d come to the edge and recently do these head lunging things, I’d take her out but after a quick flap she would waddle back in)

And yes she was unfortunately the only duckling that hatched out of 5 eggs I was given but I’ll be taking her over to a friend who has a lot of ducks themselves because I’m aware it’s unfair keeping a duck alone - I was actually supposed to do that last week since but I caught covid so I have to wait till Monday to do that! And because she was an out of season hatch i wasn’t able to find another duckling her age or close to her age despite calling up shelters and wildlife rehab places (there’s a bird flu going around so they weren’t giving out any ducklings and the only ones there were three weeks older than her) so I’ve had to raise her as a singleton despite it being an unideal situation.

She has stopped panting since though - it might’ve been because I was Ill and feverish that I didn’t notice the room was hotter (normally i open the window during the day so it’s cooler but the days that led up to that behaviour they were closed for the most part)

I live in the Uk so it’s pretty cold here - that’s why I was waiting till she was feathered to have her integrate with other ducks - again was supposed to do that last week but I had to delay it.

 

[CoriM]

I'm sorry you've been sick, but sounds like you're on the mend . And sorry about your hatch only having the one duckling. Sounds like you're going to make it work for her and I wish you both the best!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

I'm glad she's not panting anymore. Sometimes I think we get worried over the smallest things.
Now that you've mentioned a few other things, I remember your first post and we had a good chat.
I'm glad that you are feeling better. I had wondered where you vanished to. When I was sick, I didn't post and barely read the threads. I wasn't super sick, but just didn't feel like doing much.

 

[Cocelean]

I'm sorry you've been sick, but sounds like you're on the mend . And sorry about your hatch only having the one duckling. Sounds like you're going to make it work for her and I wish you both the best!

Thank you !

I'm glad she's not panting anymore. Sometimes I think we get worried over the smallest things.
Now that you've mentioned a few other things, I remember your first post and we had a good chat.
I'm glad that you are feeling better. I had wondered where you vanished to. When I was sick, I didn't post and barely read the threads. I wasn't super sick, but just didn't feel like doing much.

Yes I remember you from then! You helped me out a lot, thank you for that

And yes when I’m sick I also tend to disappear a lot - and with a weak immune system that means I disappear so often from everything because you really don’t have the energy to do anything more than the bare minimum; I think the last post I’d made was about her weird crow like side hop lid she kept doing rather than running and it’s almost like she knew I’d made a post about it, because she stopped immediately after and I never managed to video it the end so I left it at that since she was well in herself up till this point thankfully!

And that’s true with animals we do worry a lot probably because they can’t tell us what’s wrong so we keep observing their behaviour and the moment they act a little different we use as a sign somethings wrong - even if sometimes it might be a one off thing. With little aureate (Aure for short - obsessed with jewellery hence her name haha) since I’ve never raised a duck before I’m not the most educated person in terms of illness etc. so the slightest odd thing has me losing sleep over it lol

 

[Cocelean]

I'm glad she's not panting anymore. Sometimes I think we get worried over the smallest things.
Now that you've mentioned a few other things, I remember your first post and we had a good chat.
I'm glad that you are feeling better. I had wondered where you vanished to. When I was sick, I didn't post and barely read the threads. I wasn't super sick, but just didn't feel like doing much.

Hi! I have another little concern - you probably couldn’t see it from the first post but for a while now, a couple of weeks, she’s had these pinkish bits of her eyes showing, and I thought it was because she was growing older but I just wanted to make sure it’s nothing serious!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Hi! I have another little concern - you probably couldn’t see it from the first post but for a while now, a couple of weeks, she’s had these pinkish bits of her eyes showing, and I thought it was because she was growing older but I just wanted to make sure it’s nothing serious!

That's part of her eye lid and it's normal. ❤

 

[Cocelean]

That's part of her eye lid and it's normal. ❤

Oh ok that’s good thank you !

 

[Cocelean]

That's part of her eye lid and it's normal. ❤

Hi! It’s me again! Aure has gone to her forever home with another duck, but they’ve noticed her eyes have gotten really red around it all of a sudden and are a bit confused as to why?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Irritation of some kind or infection Tell them to rinse her eyes with saline many recipes on line for eye wash with saline. And pick up Terramycin eye ointment to use in case of infection. And make sure none of their chicks are pecking her around the eyes.