My 6 week old baby duck started having seizures yesterday- PLEASE HELP!!!

[lynnef]

My 6 week old baby duck started having seizures yesterday... she had about 5 of them the first day... now today she had about 14 seizures between 8am -10pm, ending tonight between 10-11pm with 4 more of them in 50 minutes... she has been quite now for about 30 minutes... But she had a total of 18 seizures today. I don't want to see her suffer, but i don't want to put her to sleep is i can help her.. the seizures are violent, she flops around and it lasts about 5-15 seconds. with it ending with her stiff on her back. At first she seem totally normal afterwards, but after today she is getting weak. she hasn't eaten anything today. she is drinkin her water, but not as much as she should be.. We started her on antibiotics (tetracycline) yesterday. and durvet vitamins & electrolytes added to her water. Then today we started her on B12 complex and 100mg of Niacin in 1 gal of water. Please... Need help...

 

[chooks4life]

Hello and

I have read that epilepsy is fairly common in ducks, but it could be deficiency too so addressing all the nutrient levels is a good idea.

An old farm text I found a lot of good info in says black pepper used to be used in ducks to stop epilepsy, they'd mix it with butter and put a little under the tongue... But I'm not saying you should do that, especially not in the middle of a seizure! I'm not sure how good butter is for ducks either, probably safe to assume it should be mixed with something else, maybe bread or yoghurt or crumble or whatever is safe... I don't keep ducks so I don't know.

Black pepper is known to be an antispasmodic and antiepileptic. People I know with MS are fiends for black pepper, they use a tablespoon per meal on average, and this was before finding out what it's good for, lol!

Random idea anyway. Best wishes.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My 6 week old baby duck started having seizures yesterday... she had about 5 of them the first day... now today she had about 14 seizures between 8am -10pm, ending tonight between 10-11pm with 4 more of them in 50 minutes... she has been quite now for about 30 minutes... But she had a total of 18 seizures today. I don't want to see her suffer, but i don't want to put her to sleep is i can help her.. the seizures are violent, she flops around and it lasts about 5-15 seconds. with it ending with her stiff on her back. At first she seem totally normal afterwards, but after today she is getting weak. she hasn't eaten anything today. she is drinkin her water, but not as much as she should be.. We started her on antibiotics (tetracycline) yesterday. and durvet vitamins & electrolytes added to her water. Then today we started her on B12 complex and 100mg of Niacin in 1 gal of water. Please... Need help...

Getting her on B complex and the extra niacin with vitamins and electrolytes hopefully will help, Usually if it's a dif you can begin to see a change in as little as 3 days, Sure hope she responds. All you can do at this point is offering her the water and hoping for recovery.

 

[lynnef]

...

 

[lynnef]

Daisy didn't make if

but at least now she is in no more pain...

 

[nange08]

I'm sorry she didn't make it. It's so hard to see them suffer--at least she is at peace now.

 

[willowbirdks]

I'm sorry she didn't make it.

 

[chooks4life]

Daisy didn't make if

but at least now she is in no more pain...

Very sorry to hear it.

In the case of sudden onset epileptic fits in an animal that was previously healthy, it's fairly likely it was due to something toxic in the environment, usually strong chemicals or heavy metals (i.e. lead paint or pesticides or insecticides on insects or plants the animal ate).

If any more birds suddenly show symptoms it may be toxicity induced and not genetic or deficiency based in cause and if you don't already have one, you should collect a good list of all the signs of different toxicities and their treatments.

Wish you all the best with your flock.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Daisy didn't make if

but at least now she is in no more pain...

I'm so sorry