How best to administer niacin to ducks

[Mary-Ellen]

I have three four week old ducklings and one has been showing signs of niacin deficiency for a while. I give them nutritional yeast in their food and grind up a 100 mg tablet and put it in scrambled eggs on the morning. I don't want to give them more eggs because I don't want them to have too much protein. I can't get liquid b3 or b3 capsules. The tablets don't want to dissolve and my duckling does not want to accept syringed mixture. I have found 500 mg tablets today and also b complex in capsules. Any advice would be appreciated. to

 

[Miss Lydia]

I'd go with the B complex open the capsule and mix with something yummy like chopped tomatoes to hide the taste. Just enough treat to make sure they are getting full dose.

 

[Mary-Ellen]

Thanks I'll try that and see if they like it

 

[Duckiiess]

How much nutritional yeast are you adding to the food? I read 1 tbsp per cup of food, so that's what we did and luckily no problems here with 20 ducklings.. they also get a tin of wet cat food a couple times a week, and a handful of mealworms a day... they go crazy for that stuff and pretty sure both of them contain niacin.

 

[Miss Lydia]

When one or more are showing signs of niacin deficiency even with NY or niacin then it’s time to bring out the big guns which is B complex.

 

[Mary-Ellen]

Thanks I'll try that and see if they like it

Four weeks of daily vitamin b3 ground up over eggs or tomatoes and my duck is walking almost perfectly. He stopped wobbling and sitting down all the time. It seemed like it took forever and I was worried he would be permanently disabled but he recovered really well!

 

[Miss Lydia]

That's great news!!