To be clear, I live in an apartment complex in South Florida with my family since I am still a student. None of us have much knowledge about ducks or any kind of waterfowl, at that. We've just been living here for a year, but we have taken a liking for the Muscovy ducks living here and we have tried our best to protect them and take care of them.
This morning, I went outside to check on the ducks and I always pay close attention to the ducklings. I saw one of them far back into our tiny garden and I went to check on it, but it couldn't walk at all. We decided to take him/her in because we knew no one else would. First we gave him a little bath. We checked the duck to see if it had any injuries of some sort, but apparently it didn't. It did have some mobility on its legs, and it seems like one of them works pretty well, but it can't really use its other foot. We put it in a cage since then and we have kept an eye on it. We currently don't have any food that would be the best for him/her, so for now we only gave it uncooked rice. I don't know if that's okay, but it's our safest guess as to what we can feed it for now. Please do give some suggestions as to what we can feed it as a backup. Note that this duck is about 2 and a half months old. It was doing just fine yesterday, I don't know what could have happened. It's been drinking lots of water and eating well, and it's actually been shuffling around and stretching in any way it could and it has been resting its strecthed out head like a dog would rest its head on the floor or on top of his paws. I want to make it feel more comfortable, but I don't know how to.
We also noticed it had foam coming out of the corner of its eye, but we really have no idea how to treat that. I'veIonly cleaned it twice and it looks kind of slimey. Is there anything I could clean that up with so it stops foaming? I tried uploading a picture, but my phone didn't let me, so I will try again later. We don't have any kind of private garden or yard to keep the duck in, we only have two bedrooms and a garage. We're a little tight on space because we also have a dog and two cats, plus we're going to take care of another dog starting tomorrow. I don't think animal services will be able to do anything, I doubt they even care since it's not our pet, it lives outside.
So, what do you think? Could I give him/her anything to help it out? Would electrolytes help? Can I apply anything to the eye? Could it survive? It's doing pretty good, but those are the two things I'm worried about.
This morning, I went outside to check on the ducks and I always pay close attention to the ducklings. I saw one of them far back into our tiny garden and I went to check on it, but it couldn't walk at all. We decided to take him/her in because we knew no one else would. First we gave him a little bath. We checked the duck to see if it had any injuries of some sort, but apparently it didn't. It did have some mobility on its legs, and it seems like one of them works pretty well, but it can't really use its other foot. We put it in a cage since then and we have kept an eye on it. We currently don't have any food that would be the best for him/her, so for now we only gave it uncooked rice. I don't know if that's okay, but it's our safest guess as to what we can feed it for now. Please do give some suggestions as to what we can feed it as a backup. Note that this duck is about 2 and a half months old. It was doing just fine yesterday, I don't know what could have happened. It's been drinking lots of water and eating well, and it's actually been shuffling around and stretching in any way it could and it has been resting its strecthed out head like a dog would rest its head on the floor or on top of his paws. I want to make it feel more comfortable, but I don't know how to.
We also noticed it had foam coming out of the corner of its eye, but we really have no idea how to treat that. I'veIonly cleaned it twice and it looks kind of slimey. Is there anything I could clean that up with so it stops foaming? I tried uploading a picture, but my phone didn't let me, so I will try again later. We don't have any kind of private garden or yard to keep the duck in, we only have two bedrooms and a garage. We're a little tight on space because we also have a dog and two cats, plus we're going to take care of another dog starting tomorrow. I don't think animal services will be able to do anything, I doubt they even care since it's not our pet, it lives outside.
So, what do you think? Could I give him/her anything to help it out? Would electrolytes help? Can I apply anything to the eye? Could it survive? It's doing pretty good, but those are the two things I'm worried about.
