SOS HELP! Baby ducklings and goslings dying

aimeedee4817

In the Brooder
May 4, 2019
14
14
21
Hello all,

We have 18 day old ducklings (2) and goslings (4). By the time my husband noticed the girl duck wasn’t breathing and she was already gone, and while trying to stimulate her to see if he could possibly save her the boy duck started having labored breathing too. Within 30 minutes both ducks had passed. We noticed yesterday that the skin on the goslings’ legs and feet had started to peel (what seemed like a normal growing side affect) but this morning the peeling skin looked a lot more irritated and some had even developed tiny blisters. It looks painful and today they are all moving around very slowly. We covered their chip-bed with towels for a softer, more forgiving surface. They have been on a diet of starter crumbles, pellets, spinach, grass, and grit, as well as water with broiler booster. We picked up some flock raiser crumbles today thinking maybe we were giving the wrong starter crumbles/pellets, got new feeders to prevent fecal matter from getting into their water and food feeders. We had been giving them water time daily, but I’m not sure if it was excessive in time for them.

Today we cleaned their legs and feet with antiseptic and covered them with bacitracin. We went out to get more ointment and to get kale to replace the spinach as we read some issues can arise from the high acidity, and upon arriving home we saw our littlest girl gosling had also passed.

This is such a strain on our hearts and our minds, as we don’t understand what is going on. We read ducklings are much more finicky with being raised, needing to be in totally clean and dry environments and they have more difficulty cleaning themselves. We have had goslings before that had no problems whatsoever, but I am so concerned now for the remaining two boys and girl. The boys are standing and slowly walking, eating and drinking, the girl is drinking but reluctant to eat. I just don’t know what else to do or how we can help. We have googled everything under the planet and it feels a lot like Web MD. Everything could happen to these littles.

Their poos are very wet and liquidy. Are there any antibiotics we can safely give them for possible infections?

Anyone else experience anything else this? We’re are such a loss, our hearts are breaking, and I want to make sure the remaining three still have a chance.
 
How hot is it? I usually use a 125 watt. 250 can get pretty hot. Have you put a thermometer under it? Can they get away? What's the temperature there?

It doesn’t seem excessively hot, and they can move far enough away from it to not be under it. It’s pointed straight down, they sitting under it after water time.
 
It's important you know the temperature. Young poultry won't always move away that first week. Since you are having multiple deaths it is something they have in common. They can die from heat exhaustion, so put a thermometer down and check your temperatures.

Also make sure your bulb is made for brooding. A shatter proof bulb can be coated in Teflon which is deadly.
 
try sitting them in a shallow pan of water and Epsom salts twice a day , also they could be getting too much protein, mine usually will get all purpose crumble and I will go out and find some wild grass such as young chickweed, make sure to cut it up into small bites, I also keep a shallow dish of water just deep enough for them to get there bills wet, too deep of water can cause them to drown. watery poo is usually a sign of not enough roughage. You do not need grit for the goslings or ducklings as most processed feed has some in it. You also do not need additives or boosters, both geese and ducks are very hardy.
 
It's important you know the temperature. Young poultry won't always move away that first week. Since you are having multiple deaths it is something they have in common. They can die from heat exhaustion, so put a thermometer down and check your temperatures.

Also make sure your bulb is made for brooding. A shatter proof bulb can be coated in Teflon which is deadly.

They are over the two week mark, and do move away, we typically have only had the lamp on at night.
I will put a temperature in there to monitor things.
The bulb is from a feed store, for brooding.
 

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