Is my duck a bit overweight? (Pic incl?)

[Kimmyh51]

This is Kefira, a Khaki Campbell x about 16-18 mths old. I feel as though she has gained some weight since I moved (she used to be fed at night only as there were loads of wild ducks st my old address and they could only,be fed in their cage at night (they free range during the day) because the wild ducks would wolf any food put out, down in seconds.

Where I am now i have a large free range style enclosure for my domestic and some rescued wild ducks, and i can leave food out all day. Since moving I think shes gained some weight. Wasnt sure how to put her on a diet as there are other ducks who need food out all day such as ducklings and juvenilles, a duck who had been unwell and lost weight and needed to build herself back up and so on.

Anyway today I found Kefira with a prolapsed vent. I have treated that and managed to get it back in and for now thats all looking fine. But I read that being overweight can cause prolapsed vent. Her keel feels as prominent as my other ducks, not hard to find but not sharp either, and i dont feel like that is a good way to determine if she is overweight.

I am not sure how to tell by appearance if a duck is overweight (unless it was grossly obese of course)

Anyway hoping someone here might be able to tell me from the photo, and suggest a y ways to reduce her weight that dont mean I have to separate her from the rest of the flock while she diets.

She will be kept separate for the next few days so that she can recover and I can keep an eye on her, and I will try and keep her feeds fat content to a minimum.

Anyway, from this photo do you think she is a bit overweight?

Also for anyone with experience how long after a prolapsed vent has been put back in and healed, would you wait before allowing her to return to the flock.... In particular to her current 'mate' (shes a bit of a good time girl this one and normally doesn't mind err, spreading her lovely self around a bit lol.)

Also its summer here, well autumn now, and she stopped laying just after Christmas to moult, but I dint think she has started laying again since, could the weight be part of that? As far as I can tell she was not egg bound.
Sorry about the poll acidentally hit go before I was done and now it won't let me edit it

 

[chickens really]

What do you feed the Ducks?.....I dont find her to be that over weight.....


Cheers!

 

[Ducks4us]

Is she the only female with her current mate? That could be the cause of the prolapse... if he is overbreeding her.
I would prob not put her back with a male if it was me personally after a prolapse. I would keep her with girls only.
On the weight i dont think she looks over weight.
I would always provided regular duck feed .
Limit things like corn... treats if you think she is heavy.
If she free ranged only before during the day maybe she was just thinner. And filled out more now since she can eat more.
I think large meat breeds of ducks have a tendency to get real heavy, but most other breeds do not from what i have read.

 

[Kimmyh51]

Hi

She has been fed mostly layer pellets. There is a lot more thats happened to her in the two days since I started this thread...

Her prolapse came right by the next day but then she was egg bound. She passed the egg a day later but is still unwell. Has had trouble defecating though and till this evening passed only whiteish fluid (urates?) this evening she did pass a lot smelly green poo with some whiteish lumps. I inspected it for any sign of yellow yolk and definitely no yolk. Shes not eating much, is drinking a little.
I gave her some sugar in water and she has been on antibiotics (just what I had on hand, oxytetracycline and some amoxicillin) for about 32 hrs.
Her abdomen doesnt feel hard or swollen that I can tll. The egg that she passed this morning was very easy to feel and its def gone
What worries me is her not pooping as much as she should, and wondering whether another egg could have been sitting behind the egg that got stuck. The egg she passed had clearly been sitting overly long in the part where the shell is made so any egg that was made in the 24 hrs she was egg bound would I assume, be soft shelled.

The egg that was passed appeared to be normal shape, size and shell quality, aside from the additional shell material that I assume was building up while she was unable to pass it. I had been easily able to feel it there the afternoon before and lubricate it and the shell had clearly been smooth and normal strength.

Nothing I can find about egg binding talks about whether there is likely to be additional eggs kina 'queuing up' behind the bound egg. Possibly the shock and pain of the situation stops most birds laying in this situation? She was laying daily, like clockwork, since finishing her molt about a month ago.

I think the sequence of events was:

Laid normal egg but prolapsed while or after laying.
Prolapse interfered with pooping
The night after prolapse she made an egg, which due to swelling etc got stuck, prolapse however resolved overnight
24-30 hrs after she'd normally have laid it, that egg got passed. Prolapse has not recurred. Vent looks normal from outside
In the 10-12 hrs since egg was passed shes been a bit shaky, def lethargic, not eating, and drinking less than usual. Panting slightly, that could be cos shes on a heat pad though?

If her egg binding was uncomplicated, whats normal in terms of recovery? Is it normal for her to be lethargic and not eating or drinking much? Am I simply being impatient or do you think she might have an infection?

She doesnt seem swollen or hot, checked under wings and shes definately not hot there.

She is still waving her tail about and trying to push something out.... Any way to tell if its poop, or something in oviduct or maybe just irritation from the prolapsed tissue making her want to push?

 

[Kimmyh51]

Oh she was the only duck 'in a relationship' with that male, but he was mating plenty of others.
If anything he probably actually copulated with her less! Like the other ducks just got mounted without so much as a hello, while she got the full head bobbing courtship session first, and then maybe they did it ...only if she wanted to. Ie she at least got treated with respect and asked first! lol

 

[Kimmyh51]

Today she ws pretty much the same, a little perkier, she went for a swim when I put her out in a run for a few hrs in the warmest part of the day. After she swam I looked in the pool (which I had just cleaned and refilled) to see if she had been to the toilet, which she had, and saw something in her poop. On closer inspection realised it was a tapeworm and saw several more. So I have wormed her now as well.

She does not feel as though she is swollen, or full of fluid or anything in her abdomen, it feels pretty much as It normally feels there. However she is still 'wagging' her tail and I can see her still trying to push a little.

She ate a little this afternoon, which is better than yesterday when she ate nothing. However this evening since I brougt her in she has not pooped at all. Shes been indoors for about 3 hrs now and not pooped at all.
She did go this morning, and went at least twice this afternoon when outside.

I am finding it hard to locate any information on what the recovery should,be like after what she has been though. What I have found on chickens being egg bound, it seemed as though any hens with an egg stuck which passed the egg without any complications like the egg breaking, that the moment the egg came out the chickens were almost instantly,back to normal.
And what I have found on prolapsed birds it seems as though there was usually more problems getting everything back in, and every time they went to the toilet it would come back out and then when they laid it would come back out. Yet for some reason my girls prolapse started before she got eggbound, and at the same time she became egg bound the prolapse seemed to resolve itself.

On one hand her being not herself, still obviously unwell makes me wonder if she has an infection, on the other her symptoms are not as bad as everything I read leads me to expect if she had another egg in there which broke, and she does not have ruffled feathers or a temperature as far as I can tell. But clearly shes still far from 100%
Has anyone out there had a duck or chicken with either egg bound or prolapsed (or both) which didnt just recover as soon as the prolapse/egg binding resolved? Is it normal for a duck tats been through something like,this to have a recovery period where she will (hopefully) continue to slowly improve, but wont be back to normal for a while?

I am pretty sure if something like,whats she has been though happened to me Id need a while to recover, but everything I read it seems like other peoples ducks or hens just pop right back to 100% normal energy levels, eating and so on almost the moment they lay the egg or get everything back inside them....

So I really dont know what is normal after something like,this.

A
So I am currently keeping her covered in the dark for almost 18 hrs a day, simply because she is normally a very prolific layer, and last winter I dont think she really stopped laying at all, so I figured cutting her light to 8 hrs a day as per normal mid winter daylight, might not be enough to prevent her laying.
Anyway as I will have to keep her in a separate run so I can put her inside at night without spending ages chasing her down, how long is it best to try and keep her fro laying? Ie how long will it be before shes done all the healing she is going to? And if she had further problems when she eventually does lay again, has anyone tried either hormones to prevent a bird laying or had one 'speyed' and how did that go?

 

[katefollot]

Any update on how she's doing?

 

[Kimmyh51]

Hi, yes shes completely recovered. I am keeping her indoors and in the dark for 16 hrs a day and today was her first day out with the other ducks.

She hasnt laid since her prolapse so i guess that will be the real test of her recovery. Looking into ways to prevent ovulation at the moment.