help with a dead duck ;(

[anyfarm]

So I guess i should start at the beginning...

my older Sister was at TSC on March 31 and saw a little mallard duckling getting picked on, so she bought 3 other ducklings with them. We set them them up a pen made out of square straw bales (in a pen in the coop, of course) the pen that the pen was in had been cleaned out and had saw dust in the pen in the pen (lot of pens

). Also in the coop we 2 different pen. One has lambs in it and the other used to have chicken in it (but wasn't cleaned out). Today, after feeding lambs, we cleaned the duck pen during witch a dumb duck decided to gen on top of a square bale and jump off, then we cleaned the lamb pen. We learn't that the person we got bum lambs from had 8 more lambs and we decided to get them. we didn't exactly want to clean out another pen we cleaned out the ark for our baby chickens that could be outside we set it up to be warm enough for the duckling. While we were setting this up our 5,3, and 2 year old went in the luck (lamb/duck) coop. the 2 year old spilled the duckling feed so the 3 and 5 year old filled it with wheat (for the chickens, not the ducklings) trying to help though they didn't know not to feed them wheat. They got scolded some then my older sister, the 3, and 2 year old went in the house and the 5 year old stayed out with us to help some. my mom and I finished setting up the coop during lunch time (I had lunch not to long ago and the 5 year old had it with the others).my older sis and I got all 4 ducklings to go in the ark but one looked sick (he hadn't before so we put him in the pen in the pen with the heat light. 30 minuets later we checked him and was he was dead he was stiff so we thought he had died probably at 15 minuets.(I didn't touch him so i don't know how warm he was). My sis and I took him out and looked to see if he had eaten to much wheat but we didn't find anything in his crop so we thought he had fallen to hard but i wasn't sure about that because the mallard had jumped of my arm still looked just fine.

So that is what had happened I came here because I wanted to see if anyone knew what else might have happened.

any ideas are greatly appreciated.

thanks bye


p.s.
if he wasn't hurt by the fall from the bale we think it was a kid but right now it is nap time so the kids are asleep right now. If they did do it i will post that here.

 

[Amiga]

It is hard to know, ducklings can be killed by any of the things you know about.

I would say adjust the way things get done - perhaps move the ducklings to a safe, quiet, warm area with plenty of fresh water with food when there will be so much going on in the coops.

 

[Amykins]

I'm so sorry for your loss...I just lost a baby and it's still fresh in my mind, it's just awful to have to go through. :/

Forgive me, my sight is bad and I'm having some trouble following what you wrote. Were the lambs in the duck pen? Were the ducklings eating something they shouldn't have? How young were the babies? If they got into any of the sheep's poop they may have contracted Coccidiosis, but I'd say that's not terribly likely. Shouldn't be Pasteurella either, since most livestock get vaccinated against it. Sadly, any number of things can take a baby's life. If the other ducklings are 100% fine and healthy, it could be anything from an internal injury to something it ate. If it was still very little, that fall could have broken its yolk and that can lead to sepsis.

No matter the cause, I'm so sorry you lost your little one. All I can say is keep a close eye on the rest and see how things go one day at a time. At least it sounded like he had a really fun time on your farm, even though it was short. All that space and fun animals to play with, it sounds like mallard heaven!

RIP little duckie.