- Apr 11, 2008
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I went to the feed store tonight to get some crumbles and scratch, and they had 4 stock tanks full of "Assorted ducklings" which I'm fairly positive are all White Pekins. lol Anyway, one little baby was isolated in a box by herself, so I checked her out. She seemed to be having breathing trouble. Just laying there, open mouthed breathing. So, I picked her up to look closer...and saw that she is tiny. The other duckling are getting big at just about 1 week old, but she is so small. That's when I noticed her deformities.
Her head is tiny and round like a Call Duck, her bill is only approx. 1/3 the size of her broodmates' bills. Her feet are tiny and thin, too, and her back is very short, so she looks very "boxy". I looked closer at her bill, and realized that not only is the bottom part slightly longer than the top, but she seriously has no nostrils at all. No openings, no indentation, nothing. In fact, where her bill should be thicker at the base where it joins her head, it is rather concave looking.
No wonder she has trouble breathing! So, I brought her home.
The feed store hadn't looked at her closely enough to see her lack of nostrils, so they thought she had a respiratory infection and put her on antibiotics. I don't think she has an infection at all. She makes a clicking "mouthy" noise when she opens her beak to breathe, but I don't think it is coming from down in her lungs. She can eat, but only one crumble at a time, and has good body weight. She can drink just fine, and make ducky noises, albeit quietly. She loves to be held, but she tends to act fairly sleepy. She has a hard time sleeping because she wakes herself up breathing through her mouth.
I have never seen anything like this before, and I will post pictures ASAP. Have any of you seen a similar condition? Any ideas on how I can make her more comfortable? I know her deformities are not really treatable, but if anybody has ideas on how to help her more, please share them!
Here are some pictures of Primrose:
First is a full body view of her to see how teeny she is at 1 week old, and how out of proportion she is, especially her bill:
Here is a close up of her bill. The peely bit on top of her bill is a wet piece of pine bedding. I know the picture is blurry, but if you look closely, you can see that the area where her nostrils should be is actually sunken in, and completely smooth.
Her head is tiny and round like a Call Duck, her bill is only approx. 1/3 the size of her broodmates' bills. Her feet are tiny and thin, too, and her back is very short, so she looks very "boxy". I looked closer at her bill, and realized that not only is the bottom part slightly longer than the top, but she seriously has no nostrils at all. No openings, no indentation, nothing. In fact, where her bill should be thicker at the base where it joins her head, it is rather concave looking.
The feed store hadn't looked at her closely enough to see her lack of nostrils, so they thought she had a respiratory infection and put her on antibiotics. I don't think she has an infection at all. She makes a clicking "mouthy" noise when she opens her beak to breathe, but I don't think it is coming from down in her lungs. She can eat, but only one crumble at a time, and has good body weight. She can drink just fine, and make ducky noises, albeit quietly. She loves to be held, but she tends to act fairly sleepy. She has a hard time sleeping because she wakes herself up breathing through her mouth.
I have never seen anything like this before, and I will post pictures ASAP. Have any of you seen a similar condition? Any ideas on how I can make her more comfortable? I know her deformities are not really treatable, but if anybody has ideas on how to help her more, please share them!
Here are some pictures of Primrose:
First is a full body view of her to see how teeny she is at 1 week old, and how out of proportion she is, especially her bill:
Here is a close up of her bill. The peely bit on top of her bill is a wet piece of pine bedding. I know the picture is blurry, but if you look closely, you can see that the area where her nostrils should be is actually sunken in, and completely smooth.
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What a wonderful thing to do.
