Lost Flipper to Unknown Predator

[Miss Lydia]

Your doing great with them!

 

[DuckyDonna]

The stitches will dissolve in a couple of weeks. I’m putting the bathtub cleanout until tomorrow when I will have more help. I had physical therapy today and I’m pretty sore. When I get the tub clean, I plan to fill it with warm water and give the ducks a chance to bathe a little. Feisty Girl probably should have limited bathing for several more days, but she looks the best of all of them, now. Flipper is still growing in the rest of her new feathers after a molt. Nipper has beautiful feathers except for her head wounds.

Once the ducks get a bath, then I’ll empty the tub again and get them set up in the clean tub again.

How in the world do you keep them in the tub?

 

[Duckworth]

How in the world do you keep them in the tub?

I have the shower curtain closed. We have an L-shaped curtain rod, so the curtain turns the corner. They don’t feel well enough to fly out and they don’t have room to get any lift. The bathroom is quite small, so there’s not much room for them even if they get out. I open the door carefully every time, just in case.

 

[Duckworth]

Nightly update:

I’m getting better at the medicating part of this. I have found that if I put the syringe up against the crease at the very corner of their bills where they meet the feathers, and push just a few drops at a time, they go into their mouths and stay there. If I don’t hear them swishing the drops down, I wait a few seconds, then gently lift their bill to just above horizontal so that the drops can move farther back and, I hope, go down. I’m giving so little in each push of the plunger that it should be staying in their throats and not going down their windpipes. The vet said they would cough it up if it did go into their windpipes and I have seen no evidence of that. Plus, they are all getting noticeably better under conditions where an infection would have been pretty likely in the absence of the antibiotics.

All of them, even Nipper, are now preening and grooming themselves, spreading oil over their feathers. I take that as a good sign. Nipper and Feisty Girl still have one eye crusted or filmed over and Nipper’s good eye isn’t great, but I do think she can see out of it. I’m not sure she is eating much, but I have seen her drinking.

Tonight, I mixed a few chunks of canned chicken with some liquid from the can, Nipper’s regular crumbles, and a little water and ground it together with an immersion blender into a loose paste and offered it to her. She was busy with her post-medication ordeal preening and didn’t show much interest, so I left it by her regular food. Because of the bill injury, I wanted to offer something that didn’t need any pressure from her bill to get down and some extra protein seemed like a good idea when she isn’t eating much and needs to build new tissue.

The other two ducks seem to be drinking and eating okay. They have three more days of antibiotics and I’m hoping to move them out of the bathtub and into somewhat larger quarters this weekend. I think Flipper’s impetus to peck at Nipper may lessen as she sees that Nipper isn’t a goner. Nipper seems to be recovering better separated, though she spends all of her time up against the cardboard to be close to her sisters.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Amazing update they are coming along so well. More space hopefully will help.

 

[Duckworth]

Three more doses of antibiotics later, all three ducks are continuing to improve, though less obviously. Flipper’s face swelling is almost gone. Feisty Girl looks pretty normal except that one eye is still crusted over.

Nipper still looks pretty beaten up, but she is alert, up, and drinking. I don’t know how much she is eating. Her poo is bright green—I think from the antibiotics—and watery. She is still preening, so I’m waiting for her to start eating again. All of them were very well-fed before the attack, so they will probably not miss the food that much. They are also in a 70-degree bathroom instead of a 15-degree duck pen, so they may not need as much fuel as they did when they were outside. I am considering whether to mix some crumbles with water and use the oral syringe to get a little food into Nipper.

Last night, I moved Flipper and FG into the side of the bathtub where Nipper is so that I could add some more newspaper between cleanings. Flipper immediately went after Nipper, billing her hard, so I worked very fast and got Flipper back to her side of the Great Wall of cardboard. They can see each other over the wall, but the flaps of the box keep them from being able to reach each other. Nipper pecks on the cardboard like a POW in solitary signaling comrades. I think Nipper may be mostly blind at this point.

Several inches of snow have melted off of the duck pen and the weather this week should let the rest of the snow and ice melt away. It’s spring break, so my son will be able to help me fortify the duck pen further.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Have you tried warm water compress on the crusty eyes? As for eating they can go down pretty quick if they don’t get nourishment hope Nipper starts eating good soon.

 

[Duckworth]

Have you tried warm water compress on the crusty eyes? As for eating they can go down pretty quick if they don’t get nourishment hope Nipper starts eating good soon.

I put a wet washcloth on the eyes each time I give the antibiotics. I’m going to call the vet tomorrow and ask about their eyes and also about Nipper’s eating.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Good idea. Keep us up on it please.

 

[Duckworth]

I tried soaking some crumble in water and grinding it with the immersion blender then giving Nipper some of the liquid through the syringe, a few drops at a time. She liked that less than the antibiotic. When I put her back in the tub, she immediately dunked her head several times and started clearing her sinuses, then preened a bunch. I’ll try a little more later. She has a lot of swelling where her upper bill meets her feathers.