Help! Injured duck!

[VTRN]

I am a long time lurker on this forum and this is the first time I have posted. I apologize if this is long winded but I need some advice!
I have 4 five week old pekin ducks. They have lived mostly in the basement with outside time every day. They have free ranged with our chickens daily with no problem. Today, we had repairmen in the basement and I made a quick judgement call to leave the ducks in the run with the chickens when I went to work. When my husband came home 3 hours later, one of our ducklings had some serious damage to his/her wings and back. It looks as if his feathers are starting to come in, but his wings are mostly bare, with raw skin (pink and red/black), broken feather "stalks" and clotted blood. His back is also bare, just the skin is showing. His wings look necrotic, but I don't think this could happen in such a short amount of time. I have no idea what happened! So far these are the interventions we have done- we let him swim in clean, fresh water, separated him from the others, covered the wounded area with sterile gauze and wrapped it (he kept pecking at the area). We have been (and will continue to) adding antibiotics to the water for the past five days, because the same duck has had weepy/droopy eyes since we got him (which I believe may cause him to have some significant visual impairment).
Is there anything else we can do for the little one? Does anyone have an idea of what could have happened, so i can prevent problems in the future? ( I should also add that our chickens' beaks are clipped, so i can not see how they could cause the damage.) Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I am a long time lurker on this forum and this is the first time I have posted. I apologize if this is long winded but I need some advice!
I have 4 five week old pekin ducks. They have lived mostly in the basement with outside time every day. They have free ranged with our chickens daily with no problem. Today, we had repairmen in the basement and I made a quick judgement call to leave the ducks in the run with the chickens when I went to work. When my husband came home 3 hours later, one of our ducklings had some serious damage to his/her wings and back. It looks as if his feathers are starting to come in, but his wings are mostly bare, with raw skin (pink and red/black), broken feather "stalks" and clotted blood. His back is also bare, just the skin is showing. His wings look necrotic, but I don't think this could happen in such a short amount of time. I have no idea what happened! So far these are the interventions we have done- we let him swim in clean, fresh water, separated him from the others, covered the wounded area with sterile gauze and wrapped it (he kept pecking at the area). We have been (and will continue to) adding antibiotics to the water for the past five days, because the same duck has had weepy/droopy eyes since we got him (which I believe may cause him to have some significant visual impairment).
Is there anything else we can do for the little one? Does anyone have an idea of what could have happened, so i can prevent problems in the future? ( I should also add that our chickens' beaks are clipped, so i can not see how they could cause the damage.) Any advice is appreciated!

sorry you had to post with an injury, sounds like the chickens may have been going after blood feathers, and once they started the other ducks may have joined in on it. Poor baby I think you did really good with letting the little one bathe but I don't think you should cover the wounds with gauze if they stick then it's just going to open them up when you remove the gauze.I'd either get some Veterycin spray and keep his wounds open to fresh ait and spray a couple times a day with this product or get some Blue Kote and use it Now both are great products but the Blue Kote will cover the wounds and disguise the wound and will turn anything it touches purple so beware when using it. I would not let this duck back with any of the flock though until healed, unless free range and supervised. Being closed up and free range are very different, as you have seen. They can keep away from each other in free range situation no place to hide when locked up together, and if this duck is already having issue they picked up on it. I can't explain how the chickens were able to do this with trimmed beaks though, but I have seen pics of ducks and geese on here that have had similar things happen with there brooder pals and they don't have sharp bills. Also keeping the lil one inside till healed will hopefully keep flies off of it's wounds Maggots are not something you want to deal with and they are deadly to a duck if they get out of hand. Please let us know how your duckling is doing, and when keeping this one separate if you can do it where they can all still see each other that would be good that way when time to be put back together again it will go smoother.

 

[VTRN]

Thanks so much for your reply. Our duckling, Sleepy, is still hanging in there. I took the gauze off so his wounds are now open to air. He just had another swim in the kiddie pool but was not very energetic at all
He is eating and drinking though, just very docile, which is out of character for him. I will look into the blue kote. Thank you for the suggestion. I got a good look in the sunlight today and it does appear that he had several blood feathers damaged and I suspect had quite a bit of blood loss.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thanks so much for your reply. Our duckling, Sleepy, is still hanging in there. I took the gauze off so his wounds are now open to air. He just had another swim in the kiddie pool but was not very energetic at all

He is eating and drinking though, just very docile, which is out of character for him. I will look into the blue kote. Thank you for the suggestion. I got a good look in the sunlight today and it does appear that he had several blood feathers damaged and I suspect had quite a bit of blood loss.

I'd try picking up some poultry vitamins along with Blue kote he could use a good boost right now and if you can find some with probiotic in it would even be better because as you know when taking antibiotics they kill good and bad bacteria so his tummy could use the probiotics right now. Hopefully his not being very energetic right now maybe just from what he had been through. Eating and drinking are good indicators he isn't going down hill. So try not to worry too much. Please keep us updated.