HELP. Ducks eating but food not passing through.

[Linda Evans]

Hi I keep Muscovy ducks and in the last few weeks the duckings I hatched in April have all become ill, they are weak and losing weight, some have sour crop all have stopped growing, there is no faeces they are just producing liquid. None of the adults Muscovy are ill and I also have also 23 young mallards none of which are ill. We live on a farm and they have a natural spring fed river. I thought they may have eaten something that had caused blockages or poisoned them so I took one duck to a vet who removed what he thought was a blockage of wood chip from it's crop and told me to change the bedding to straw but today one died and I performed a necropsy what I found was shown in the pictures. The first picture shows the gizzard liver and heat with the crop at the bottom entrance to the crop from the right, there is a distinct line where the inflammation stopped just before it leaves the crop it was thick and bloody. There was a small amount of food in the crop but lower in the proventriculus before the food entered the gizzard the area was covered in some bloody lessons with a thick and crumbly surface that was totally blocking food from passing through. It does not look like anything eaten but maybe an infection or bacterial growth. I know it is probably too late to save the others lives but does anyone have any ideas what this can be. I have kept the intestine shown to take to the vet to see if they can find out what it is and possible prevention in the future. Any help would be great.

 

[Stipenvlerk]

Hi Linda, Welcome to BYC.
What a sad reason to decide to join this forum.
But I’m glad you did.

Thank you for uploading the pictures of the necropsy. I’m not able to help you but I’m going to follow this thread to learn from it too...

I hope some of our most experienced members can explain why this is happening.

hopefully the others will not all die

 

[Linda Evans]

Hi Stipenvlerk
Thank you for welcoming me.
Having trawled the internet I'm beginning to think could be Coccidiosis because of causing caseous core lesions which I think is the thickening shown in the picture and that none of the mallards have any problems because they have natural immunity, the mallards were rescued ducklings found along the river were their mums have lost or left them behind, some of which were adopted by a broody Muscovy and joined her brood. All the ducks muscovy and mallards are now between 5-8 weeks old and live together. There does not seem to be much we can do about it now if it is but I will contact the vet to ask about checking the crop for me to see what they find. We have loads of wild birds here, geese, swans, ducks, moorhen and coots all of which have learned to raid my treadle feeders so maybe not the best place to raise domestic ducks with very little natural immunity. Might just have to accept my losses this year and stick with the adults that must be immune by now and my chickens.

 

[DuckyDonna]

@casportpony @Pyxis may know something about this. @Miss Lydia @Isaac 0 too.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I sure don’t but hopefully @casportpony can weigh in

 

[casportpony]

What state do you live in?

 

[Isaac 0]

Hi, there!

Just checking in to see how your bird is doing. Updates to these type of threads are quite useful for people in the future experiencing the same problem.