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Thank you for taking your time doing the research.Was Yaya able to be outside at all? where he could find grit naturally? or did you give him grit?
here is all I could find and it is related to dogs but if Yaya ate a seed when he was 10 and lived 1 and a half years more I doubt the seed had anything to do with his death.
Longan seeds contain saponin, which can cause irritation in the dog's stomach, leading to diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea.2 Longan flowers and seeds are rich in polyphenols and proanthocyanidins, which have been researched for supporting heart and immune health.4 Longan is native to Southeast Asia and widely cultivated in Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and China. Longan can be processed to obtain essential oil or extracts, and it plays a salient role in traditional Chinese medicine.3 Longan shells are a choking hazard and can lead to intestinal obstruction in dogs if swallowed.0 Longan is not recommended for dogs as it contains saponin.2 Longan is often used in Asian soups, snacks, desserts, and sweet-and-sour foods.1
My mom bought several ducklings from street market in April 2012 and Yaya was one of them.It's said many poultry plant give away weaker ducklings to sellers who sell them in the street market.
But keep long story short.Mainly about being outside or not and the grit.But still quite long....
2012.04-2013.01 Yaya had been cared for by my parents who rented a suburban yard 2 hours drive from downtown Beijing.There Yaya spent his duckling and juvenile time with his fellow peking duck who sadly died at the beginning of 2013.Yaya and his fellow peking duck free-ranged in the yard.They foraged in the vegetable garden and ran freely in the mud and ate flies, bugs,earthworms and so on.They had never ate commercial duck feed.My parents fed them corn powder in the form of mesh,vege and fruits.Since they free-ranged, I am sure they ate soil but I am not sure about grit or stone.
It's a shame I only got the concept of grit's role in duck's digestion after Yaya passed away because during the past month I could not help searching everything about raising ducks and duck health related topic like every minute I was awake,I couldn't sleep like before anyway.
2013.01-2014.11 My parents bought an adult goose and several adult chickens in January 2013,so Yaya had lived his free ranged life with them.They were always outside during the day and they spent nights in a barn like place and never got any heating or bedding in winter.
2014.11-2020.09 My father had heart attack and passed away at the beginning of 2014.By the winter time, I had to move my mom back to downtown for it's hard for her to live there by herself.We gave the goose and chickens to neighbours because it's almost impossible to raise them in an apartment but since Yaya was the favourite of my father, we decided to have him with us.So from the winter of 2014,Yaya had lived in the balcony of our downtown apartment.Yes,he was alone but somehow he was quite independent and was friends with a pair of slippers and a broom and during the day he always had several bath in the bath tub I changed water everyday and placed in his balcony and he would spend much time preening and made himself clean and shiny.We could always hear he had fun with slippers and the broom in his balcony and then splashed in the bath tub.After work,I would play with him and he would keep me company when I worked at home.During winter times,I never let him come inside because the room temperature was heated and I believed the natural four season temperature changing cycle was healthy for him.Though I did not have the concept of grit,I did give him soil from our indoor plant pots from time to time because I knew he was interested in pecking at soil and mud stuff.And I sometimes took him out to the nearby park and riverside but he would rather just watch the views and he seemed not interested in foraging or eating soil or grit.
2020.09-2023.09 We moved into a bigger apartment which is on the first floor.And we have a small yard in which we grow some vegetable.And there is a small piece of land before our yard I sometimes took Yaya to play on that land but only with my supervision because although I know there is no pesticide or anything poisonous there but it is still a public area and there are stray cats in this residential area and some other predators and neighbours would walk their dogs. At first,Yaya was interested in foraging a bit there and especially after rain he would love to drill a hole in the mud but I don't think he ate anything bigger than soil. And for the past 1-2 years he seemed not quite interested in foraging, when we were outside either in our small yard or on the land before our yard, he would just peck at(eat) soil for a bit and then stand or sit down beside me. But yes,pecking at/eating soil was something he was into till the end.
And I had never given him grit.
And he had never eaten any commercial duck feed and maybe that's why he did not get all the nutrients a duck need.I could not help but think that he could have lived for 20 years.It's all my fault.What a long way we had come along together but my ignorance ended it.
