I named him/her Little One because he (haven't sexed him yet) is half the size of the others. They all hatched at the same time. Little One at about four weeks old had a bad niacin deficiency making it impossible for him to stand or walk. I took him into the house and nursed, with the help of Miss Linda, Little one to as good of health as I could. He still has some nerve problems, to the extent I'm not sure of. I know when he gets excited or worked up he sifferns up straight and can't bring his butt up or his head down. He gets like this when I give him fresh feed. "Oh boy, oh boy fresh yummy food!" It looks like he is standing at attention. So I put my hand under his butt and lift it up for him. After a couple seconds he calms down and can do on his own. He and the others are 8 weeks old now. Little One is half their size and his feather development is significantly behind the others. I don't see him preening the feathers around his wings or back end. I wonder if he is having trouble with his neck that he can't reach. This of course means he can't water proof his feathers. I've been taking him outside to the pond with other ducks to get excersise and eat all that pond stuff that ducks eat. He loves it. I notice he doesn't go into the deep water. He stays where he can touch. The others don't like him because he's been away for a few weeks and is now physically different from them. When they come close he runs out of the water up to me where the stop. He wants to be around them but they peck at him and push him down. He is scared of them but he wants to be around them, I can see it in the way acts and watches them. I feel so bad for him. I wonder if reducing from 10 to a smaller flock would help reduce their aggression. A coworker expressed the disire to get couple from us for his pond. He doesn't still want them we will butcher a couple. That was the original plan. Keep a couple females and a couple males for eggs and breeding of more meat ducks. At this point I can't leave Little One out with the others because they will kill him. I've been keeping him in our laundry room and my husband doesn't like it, "I spent too much money on that room for that duck to ruin it." We have 4 dogs in our fenced in back yard so I can't let Little One out there either. I don't want to put Little One down but if I have no other options I might have to.
Whoa. Elf was a couple of weeks behind everyone else till they were about six months old. Little One is just one duckling - I know they are not potty trained, but - and I am just going to share my feelings, no judgment - just one little duckling for a bit of extra time, just give the little a break. The time spent helping the duckling out will fly by and in retrospect will be just a flash of a memory. But the satisfaction of helping a struggling critter can stay with you for a lifetime. Keep providing safety, and some extra nutrition, fresh water, and I suspect Little One will catch up. You are right to prevent the others from harassing the duckling, or worse.
