Please tell me what you think about this baby duckling

[Mommysongbird]

He/She got stuck in a fence today and could not put weight on her right leg. The leg looks in an odd position when she lays down. Will try to upload a video too.

 

[JadeComputerGal]

That looks like more than a sprain to me. As I so often do, I'd have to suggest taking it to an avian vet. I know that's usually not what people want to hear since vets can be expensive, but it can be difficult to diagnose things like this even in person if you don't have a lot of experience, and I can't claim to have that myself. Even though I was in the medical field for eleven years before I lost my mind and went into IT, I still qualify any medical opinions I offer to people by saying, "But I'm not a doctor."

You can try to carefully examine the leg (best with another person holding the duckling) to see if there are obvious breaks. There might not be with a break of a fine bone, just as in other animals, and it could also be dislocation at the hip if it was trying to free itself from a fence. Splinting is an option, but you kind of have to know where the injury is to do splinting correctly.

If taking it to the vet isn't an option, I'd try letting it swim around periodically in a lukewarm bath of epsom salts (supervised), and also segregating it from the other ducks, including other ducklings, until you can see if it's improving. You might want to otherwise, when it's not in water, keep it in a smaller container so it has less room to move around. Any animal, or even human, should stay off a sprained or broken leg/foot to avoid causing further injury and to speed the healing.

 

[Amiga]

Some feed an all-flock with crushed oyster shell free choice.

 

[Mommysongbird]

 

[Orca5094]

Oh my, the poor thing. :/ Looks like possibly the tendon has slipped out of place on that leg. Hard to tell for sure without seeing that leg up closer. Have you read through the Poultry Podiatry page? It might be helpful in this case (scroll down to "slipped achilles tendon" section):

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

The leg could also be broken somewhere. Just not a good sign that the duckling doesn't seem to be able to use that leg at all.

 

[Amiga]

What is it being fed? Looks like niacin defiency is a strong possibility. A tablespoon of brewer's yeast each day in the food may be what is needed. It won't hurt.

You could also put either plain niacin or a B complex vitamin into the drinking water. Rate of 150 mg niacin to 1 gallon of water. Use the niacin portion of the B complex to determine how much of the vitamin to put in a gallon of water.

 

[Mommysongbird]

Thanks for the replies, I don't know what is was/is, but she is fine now. We had her in the crate and she stayed there til we got back home. My son went to check on her and she started running around the crate. So we put her back out with mom (one of my chickens) and is okay now.

 

[Mommysongbird]

What is it being fed? Looks like niacin defiency is a strong possibility. A tablespoon of brewer's yeast each day in the food may be what is needed. It won't hurt.

You could also put either plain niacin or a B complex vitamin into the drinking water. Rate of 150 mg niacin to 1 gallon of water. Use the niacin portion of the B complex to determine how much of the vitamin to put in a gallon of water.

She and her siblings are fed regular laying mash. I feed it to all of our chicks. Have for several years now.

Where do you get the brewer's yeast at and what does that do? We have adult ducks as well as these 5 babies (hatched by a chicken) and they have never had brewer's yeast either but I remember a friend telling me that they give it to their ducks in the laying mash.

 

[Mommysongbird]

Oh my, the poor thing. :/ Looks like possibly the tendon has slipped out of place on that leg. Hard to tell for sure without seeing that leg up closer. Have you read through the Poultry Podiatry page? It might be helpful in this case (scroll down to "slipped achilles tendon" section):

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

The leg could also be broken somewhere. Just not a good sign that the duckling doesn't seem to be able to use that leg at all.

I checked the leg, both at the same time to see if there were any difference and there weren't. But since she is putting weight on it now and running around on it, I guess everything is good.

 

[Amiga]

Chick starter has only about a third of the optimum amount of niacin for ducklings. And a layer mash won't be formulated for optimum nutrition for growing ducklings. Many feed the layer to all their birds, I realize.

From what I have seen over the last few years on the BYC Duck Forum, there are a number of ducklings who need much more niacin than they are getting. Once that is corrected (brewer's yeast, plain niacin capsules, B complex capsules), leg problems, even sometimes seizures go away.

I have read that the high levels of calcium in layer feed is not good for non-laying birds, including drakes and ducklings. We each do the best we can with what we have and what we know.