Sick Peking duckling!

[Duckmom265]

I don't know what is wrong with my poor baby. I've been feeding duck crumbles, b complex in the water as well as nutridrench. They get smashed peas once a day and mealworm/fly larva every day as well as romaine and or kale. She seems to have a lump on her neck and has trouble holding her head up. Need advice on what to do!

 

[Miss Lydia]

@Miss Lydia any recommendations? It makes me so sad to see her like this.

Are you also offering chick grit? The only time they don’t need grit is when eating crumbles. All other food they need chick grit so they can grind up their roughage. Stop feeing anything other than their crumbles for now. And make their feed like warm soup so it’s easier to get down. Is she eating an drinking? Get chick grit put in a container close to feed but no in it. They know instinctively to use it as needed. As for the impacted food if this is her problem I am not sure what to do but I’ll tag @Isaac 0 maybe he’s had experience with this .

 

[Duckmom265]

Sorry, I don't think Miss Lydia's tag worked for me.

From the video, it definitely looks like she is having a hard time supporting her neck, that could be caused by a few reasons, but what we tend to see with birds around that age is a nutritional deficiency, often either in thiamine (b1) or vitamin E. I see that your giving her B vitamin and poultry nutri drench in her water, but I would personally suggest against that since the taste can be unpalatable and they're water intake might decrease. Instead try mixing some B complex, and one capsule of human 400iu soft gel into some mashed scrambled eggs, and see if she'll take to that. Provide clean water.

The lump is on the side of her neck, correct? How does it feel, like a bean bag, hard, or like air? Does it go away in the morning?

How big is their pen area, what is the temperature? What are you feeding them?

Yes, the lump is on the side. She let's me massage it. It felt like a bean bag. It is back this morning. I feed chick starter with nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. I started with the smashed peas with b complex and one vitamen e softgel yesterday. I've been doing that once a day. They don't seem to mind the b complex in their water. They have chick grit available at all times. Should I just give them a food slurry a couple times a day instead of dry crumbles for a bit?

They are in a smaller pen at the moment because I didn't want her to not be able to get to her food. They have a heat lamp, it's about 80° in their pen

 

[Isaac 0]

If she weighs 2 lbs and 11 ounces , the dose for the cephalexin would be,

35mg x 1.21 kilos = 42mg.

So take one of the 500mg cephalexin pills, crush thoroughly using a mortar and pestle, take the pill and mix in with 10 ml of sterilized/distilled water. The powder won't dissolve completely, so during the whole process you'll want to shake the bottle to distribute the powder as evenly as you can . You will be left with a mixture that contains 50mg of cephalexin per ml ( 50mg x 10ml = 500mg).

That said, you'll want to give her nearly 0.9ml of the liquid four times a day orally (PO).

Information on how to give poultry medicine orally.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...dications-to-all-poultry-and-waterfowl.73335/

 

[Isaac 0]

I see you just updated her weight, let me change the dosing for you real quick.

 

[Isaac 0]

Sorry, I don't think Miss Lydia's tag worked for me.

From the video, it definitely looks like she is having a hard time supporting her neck, that could be caused by a few reasons, but what we tend to see with birds around that age is a nutritional deficiency, often either in thiamine (b1) or vitamin E. I see that your giving her B vitamin and poultry nutri drench in her water, but I would personally suggest against that since the taste can be unpalatable and they're water intake might decrease. Instead try mixing some B complex, and one capsule of human 400iu soft gel into some mashed scrambled eggs, and see if she'll take to that. Provide clean water.

The lump is on the side of her neck, correct? How does it feel, like a bean bag, hard, or like air? Does it go away in the morning?

How big is their pen area, what is the temperature? What are you feeding them?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Are you also offering chick grit? The only time they don’t need grit is when eating crumbles. All other food they need chick grit so they can grind up their roughage. Stop feeing anything other than their crumbles for now. And make their feed like warm soup so it’s easier to get down. Is she eating an drinking? Get chick grit put in a container close to feed but no in it. They know instinctively to use it as needed. As for the impacted food if this is her problem I am not sure what to do but I’ll tag @Isaac 0 maybe he’s had experience with this .

Sorry spelled your name wrong again

 

[Isaac 0]

Yes, the lump is on the side. She let's me massage it. It felt like a bean bag. It is back this morning. I feed chick starter with nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. I started with the smashed peas with b complex and one vitamen e softgel yesterday. I've been doing that once a day. They don't seem to mind the b complex in their water. They have chick grit available at all times. Should I just give them a food slurry a couple times a day instead of dry crumbles for a bit?

They are in a smaller pen at the moment because I didn't want her to not be able to get to her food. They have a heat lamp, it's about 80° in their pen

A bean bag is about what the area (crop) should feel like. To be clear, the area is still big in the morning? How does her poop look?

Since you just started the vitamins, it may be a few days/week until you see some improvement. Just keep it up with the vitamins.

 

[RShayne]

I had one that was lethargic Sunday, gave it an egg yolk, sugar water and rooster booster. Didn't expect it to last the night but if it was going to its happy place it was going well feed and hyper. Had to use a syringe to get it down, but the next morning it was still alive and I couldn't pick it out, so all 15 got scrambled eggs. The sick one was one of the yellow ones.

 

[Isaac 0]

Poor thing.

If she's not responding to the vitamins at all, I think you should still continue to administer them, but I do believe its time we start to consider some other problems instead. I see this limber neck activity going on, as well as her lack of interest in things. Would there be any chance she ate any pieces of metal, or ingested something moldy, or toxic? How does her feces look?

I'm not one to prescribe/mention the use of antibiotics unless I'm sure they will be useful, but that might be something I would try with her. Do you have any antibiotics on hand, if so what, and how many? If you don't have any, you can easily get some online in fish or bird form. For such a young bird I might recommend Amoxicillin. Would you be willing to purchase some, if so, here's a link to Amoxicillin.

https://www.chewy.com/fish-aid-anti...r finned,negative bacteria plaguing your fish.