Limping Duck

[Dunkin Ducks]

My 4 year old call duck is limping since I opened the coop this morning. She was perfectly fine last night, and now she can barely move around. I brought her in for an epsom salt soak already, and now she is separated from the other ducks. While in the bathtub she did not use the foot at all to paddle. The foot and leg are hot to the touch compared to her other leg, and I do not feel any breaks.

Here is a video of her while I am feeling her foot for breaks:

There are no scratches on her feet so I ruled out bumblefoot, and she is fed Mazuri waterfowl maintenance feed so I also ruled out nutrient deficiency

Should bring her into the vet now or wait a couple days to see if it improves on its own?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Could be a sprain. Does she have the opportunity in the coop to jump up on down from anything? If you feel better taking her to the vet then by all means do. Or you could give her a few days of rest and see how she is doing.

 

[Isaac 0]

Ducks often develop soft tissue trauma.
This can be set on by over-mating from drakes, by tripping/falling over objects, or getting their feet caught in things. If you have felt the leg thoroughly and can't feel any broken bones, I suspect this to be the case.
Treatment for these injuries generally consists of restricting the bird's movement to help reduce the chance of reinjury. To help combat some of the inflammation, you can consider administering an NSAID such as aspirin - if you have access to a vet, they may be able to provide you with meloxicam, carprofen, or another similar NSAID. Additionally, you may try and get the duck bathing in deep water daily to help alleviate some of the weight of the legs, and relax the muscles.
I find it likely you'll see some improvement within a few weeks.

 

[Quaillober77]

My 1 year old east Indie started limping this morning and I have no idea what I should do.

 

[SRagno]

Ducks often develop soft tissue trauma.
This can be set on by over-mating from drakes, by tripping/falling over objects, or getting their feet caught in things. If you have felt the leg thoroughly and can't feel any broken bones, I suspect this to be the case.
Treatment for these injuries generally consists of restricting the bird's movement to help reduce the chance of reinjury. To help combat some of the inflammation, you can consider administering an NSAID such as aspirin - if you have access to a vet, they may be able to provide you with meloxicam, carprofen, or another similar NSAID. Additionally, you may try and get the duck bathing in deep water daily to help alleviate some of the weight of the legs, and relax the muscles.
I find it likely you'll see some improvement within a few weeks.

My 4 y/o khaki Campbell is limping this morning too. I'm suspecting a sprain as nothing feels out of place. She's moving her leg a little bit more than this duck but I don't know what I can do for her as far as pain goes. Just Epson salt baths and how often? I can bring her inside away from the other four girls not that they'd bother her or anything, but in their pen, there're areas where they have to go up and down (on pallets). She can get to food and water on the ground, however, their swimming pool is up on a pallet. I'd like to give her a little something for pain but how do you know the dosage? I just want to make her more comfortable as she hopefully heals. Thanks for any advice.

 

[BelovedBirds]

My 4 y/o khaki Campbell is limping this morning too. I'm suspecting a sprain as nothing feels out of place. She's moving her leg a little bit more than this duck but I don't know what I can do for her as far as pain goes. Just Epson salt baths and how often? I can bring her inside away from the other four girls not that they'd bother her or anything, but in their pen, there're areas where they have to go up and down (on pallets). She can get to food and water on the ground, however, their swimming pool is up on a pallet. I'd like to give her a little something for pain but how do you know the dosage? I just want to make her more comfortable as she hopefully heals. Thanks for any advice.

The water doesn't need to be Epsom salts, just plain water will be fine. Cool deep water as often as you can can help.

If the sprain is quite bad, restricting movement by having her in a pen or crate, may be a good idea and allow healing faster.
Do you have access to a vet? When my girlie got a nasty sprain, she had trouble walking and was panting a lot showing signs of pain. I got her to my vet and she got prescribed meloxicam and it made a huge difference basically immediately.

If this isn't possible, you could try small doses of aspirin, but I found it didn't help much at all for mine.