Aw sorry I read that wrong. Hopefully the new Durvet B complex helps the little one! I noticed the same trend as well with some batches (particularly with my one breed) seemingly having niacin deficiencies at hatch. When I first noticed it I started to document my thoughts and what I was seeing. I know it's not a problem during incubation since I only collect clean, fresh and correctly shaped eggs out of the nesting boxes for hatching. I use nurture right 360s which are pretty reliable and I pre calibrate analog instruments to ensure correct temp/humidity to keep everything uniform across the board. This spring I plan to try dosing my breeding ducks for two weeks before egg collecting starts with Poultry Cell (one of my favorite supplements with B3) and also bump their protein starting a month prior. I'm curious to see if it will change anything.
Thank you for the support and information. We have hatched about 80 and this is our first experience with something like what this little is experiencing. This one hatched from an egg I found in the coop and couldn‘t toss as I could see it was developing. The other four that hatched the same week were also found eggs and they are all healthy.
I feel he is stronger but there is no change in his legs or neck. When I give him a bath hos head goes forward and it‘s almost too stiff. He can‘t pull it back up. This also happens periodically when he eats. His heart beats so hard after a bath that I can hear it thumping.
And he doesn‘t have an adult voice like the other hatchlings from the same week. He has a little sound like a whistle. If he is hingry and hears me in the morning, he makes three short whistles and I whistle back. Even if we could make a wheel chair device, he could not move it.
Everyday he goes outside and sits in a pen where he can see the other ducks. We have a number of ducks and he cries out if they go around the corner and he can‘t see them. Two of the hatchlings from that week were adopted and the two left (including the largest hatchling we have seen) will sit outside his pen.
At night he is inside in a clear plastic tub. I hold him while he eats to ensure he gets enough. He eats and drinks well. He is always hungry.
I have bought puppy pads (he doesn’t chew on them like other ducklings might) so I can easily take out a dirty pad and he isn‘t sitting in his own mess. I rinse off his bottom (whatever that area is for a duck).
He has such a will to live but his quality of life is so poor. I think we may need to put him down, but it is heartbreaking. I am hoping he will get better soon. I also wonder because of his voice if he was born this way and it is showing more as he grows. I didn‘t notice anything unusual the first week exceot that he was so small. He did sit on his tail a lot before I noticed the other signs with his legs, but his legs do seem like a niacin deficiency. I am hoping he improves soon.
