Nighthawk78
Chirping
Hi all,
So we had another Muscovy duckling hatch last night. The duck who hatched her and her three siblings is a first-time mother and didn't seem to want anything to do with them unless they could move by themselves. Two of her siblings passed away last night so I took this one inside. She/he's doing better today, but it's not acting like other ducklings we've had. I've noticed all four of these newer ones, who hatched a week late, have had a head tilt, where their head is tilted off to the left. The duckling doesn't seem to have much neck strength and more often than not just lets its head lay on the ground while it's laying down. It was peeping a lot earlier and it struggles, but it doesn't seem to have anywhere particular it wants to go. It clambers around the box, more frog-pushing itself around and occasionally rolling over, unable to get back onto its feet. Its feet are spread quite widely apart and it doesn't react when I move my hand near it, only when I touch it. It's pupils dilate when I flash a light at it but I'm pretty sure even if it was blind it would do that (it's a natural reflex?). I have no idea what's happening here and if it's going to make it.
As I mentioned before, this one and it's other alive sibling were hatched a week after the others. After the other sixteen hatched, the mothers left the nest to care for their babies and didn't return. However, we've been getting extremely high temperatures here in Australia, up to 43 degrees Celsius one day, and this is probably the only reason the survived. Could it be heatstroke, or that the high heats during the last leg of incubation messed up their brain or something? It's currently trying to preen, but when it stands up, it's shaking so badly it can't get its bill under its stomach.
Any ideas what's wrong with it?
So we had another Muscovy duckling hatch last night. The duck who hatched her and her three siblings is a first-time mother and didn't seem to want anything to do with them unless they could move by themselves. Two of her siblings passed away last night so I took this one inside. She/he's doing better today, but it's not acting like other ducklings we've had. I've noticed all four of these newer ones, who hatched a week late, have had a head tilt, where their head is tilted off to the left. The duckling doesn't seem to have much neck strength and more often than not just lets its head lay on the ground while it's laying down. It was peeping a lot earlier and it struggles, but it doesn't seem to have anywhere particular it wants to go. It clambers around the box, more frog-pushing itself around and occasionally rolling over, unable to get back onto its feet. Its feet are spread quite widely apart and it doesn't react when I move my hand near it, only when I touch it. It's pupils dilate when I flash a light at it but I'm pretty sure even if it was blind it would do that (it's a natural reflex?). I have no idea what's happening here and if it's going to make it.
As I mentioned before, this one and it's other alive sibling were hatched a week after the others. After the other sixteen hatched, the mothers left the nest to care for their babies and didn't return. However, we've been getting extremely high temperatures here in Australia, up to 43 degrees Celsius one day, and this is probably the only reason the survived. Could it be heatstroke, or that the high heats during the last leg of incubation messed up their brain or something? It's currently trying to preen, but when it stands up, it's shaking so badly it can't get its bill under its stomach.
Any ideas what's wrong with it?
Your experience and knowledge would be greatly appreciated 
It also seems to enjoy snuggling with people, I'm not sure if it just likes the contact better than the heat box, or if it likes the vibrations of our voices or heartbeats
