Strange (2wk old) Duckling Symptoms: Stiff, odd walking posture, botulism?

[Kimmyh51]

Hello and Happy New Year Y'all (its 2019 here in NZ) /insert smiley icon here - button wont work for some reason


I have a wild mallard duckling, mother hatched it somewhere nearby and brought here, one of 6 originally, 4 now. It is around 2.5 weeks old, and a good size for its age, and seemingly healthy till a couple of days ago.


Then the day before yesterday i noticed it seemed a little bit less active than its siblings, choosing to stay sitting, or walk a wee way then sit, and also was holding itself in a slightly off position, with its tail slightly more towards the ground and front of its body slightly more upright almost as if, forgive my analogy, but as if it were having a poop that needed some effort to push out. Note it was NOT straining at all, just that's the only thing its slightly modified walking position reminded me of.


Anyway yesterday it was worse, and I found it sitting down well away from mum and siblings, it looked as if it had simply sat down and let them carry on without it. When I went to catch it it stood up and ran slightly stiffly, and also close to the ground, and at first I thought it might be niacin deficiency, as I have had a number of mallards (but interestingly not a single domestic duck - both on the same diet) this duckling season with it (despite supplementation with yeast and niacin powder). So i put it in the 'niacin ducks' run, with 3 other juvenile ducks who had shown some signs of mild niacin deficiency and were in a small covered run, so I could feed them a more heavily niacin supplemented diet.


Today it seemed worse still,more lethargic, less winning to get up, didn't move till I had my hand in the run almost touching it. then it was walking very stiffly, and holding its wings straight out from its body, almost like a kid does when pretending they can fly.

Please note; I am NOT referring to the way a ducks wings sit out when it has angel wing. Firstly this duckling at only 2 and a half weeks is nowhere near the stage of development to get angel wing it only has tiny forelimbs with ducking fluff, no feathers yet, and secondly this was like it was holding the wings straight out sideways in this stiff unnatural position, as it ran. I've never seen anything like this. The legs also don't seem to quite fit the usual niacin deficiency symptoms either, they are more stiff than weak.

could this be early botulism? does anyone have any ideas?


i don't know if its coincidence but one of its siblings died early yesterday or the night before. it was showing typical signs of gapeworm, gasping, stretching neck and head forward 'gaping' respiratory blockage sounds etc - i had treated that duckling a day and a half earlier with ivermecton, and also discussed with a vet who agreed it sounded like typical gapeworm.

It had seemed to improve but only very slightly, a day later, then 12 hrs later i found it dead. i don't know if this is related or not. symptom wise there is no similarity, the stiff lethargic duckling has no respiratory symptoms at all. There are no other obvious signs, poop and vent normal, no discharges, no coughing, breathing noises, not hunched up, eyes normal, nares normal, etc..


I don't have any idea what might be wrong, my only guess would be either botulism or maybe some other toxin.


I lost an adult recently to what I am pretty confident was lead poisoning, so maybe this duckling has also ingested some lead, but not sure what the (lead) source is....


If anyone has any clues or any links to videos of ducklings or ducks with early signs of botulism could they please post?


I feel like this little one is going downhill rapidly, and even if I had hundreds of $ for testing, there are no nearby vets open or for a few days, due to new years and i suspect the duckling may be gone by then.


Also if anyone has any experience with gapeworm in ducklings could they please post their experience or any links to useful threads. What I would like to discover regarding the duckling with apparent gapeworm that died ~36 hrs after treatment is:

1. Is death after treatment reasonably common, or to be expected for some birds, or is that unusual with treatment?

a) Ie, does it dying a day and a half after ivermecton treatment, rule out gapeworm as cause of death, or does the fact that the gapeworm (if that's what it was) was causing a profound amount of respiratory distress mean that even with treatment death was still a significant probability…?

b) I've tried to Google this, but while plenty of websites discuss gapeworm, and its symptoms, and progression without treatment, etc, and while most also list ivermecton among the medications effective against it, none of those sites say what percentage of birds will likely die even with treatment, or say if there is a point where the gapeworm is severe enough that an affected bird will likely die even if treated… can anyone comment on specifically gapeworm outcome WITH treatment?

I might post another thread re the gapeworm, will post link in comments if i do

thanks

 

[Kimmyh51]

If anyone is interested here is the outcome of the above case:

I'm not sure what was actually wrong with the above duckling, possibly it had a gi blockage. anyway i decided when it went right down hill to attempt to give it subcutaneous fluids as I was pretty sure it would die without fluids (and probably with). After 5 or so days giving it 5-10ml bolus saline 3-4 times daily, it started eating again, and from there improved rapidly. I am glad I decided to try giving it sub. fluids as It was very dehydrated and I don't think it would have survived without them. from the start it was perking up a little after each injection, and I think the fluids gave it the time it needed for its body/gi/immune system to work through whatever had made it so ill to start with. it is now doing well, eating, drinking swimming, and being rather cheeky lol, so very happy with the outcome on this one. the best moment of this experience for me was about day 3 or 4 when after its fluid injection while holding the duckling it started cheekily biting my hand and fingers, as ducklings do, with some discernible strength in its beak and typical duckling cheeky character showing through... it was the moment it went from being a really sick-probably going to die- duckling - back towards a typical cheeky curious duckling....those nips were wonderful ;-)

if anyone wants to learn how to give fluids the video is at lafebervet.com. It was under avian vet articles I think. I have given subcutaneous injections before this, but on cats and dogs (mostly vaccinations when working part time at a vet around 20 yrs ago) so basically I have no experience.... the video was very good and detailed, if you have a bird who is failing and dehydrated (this duckling felt very doughy and was appearance wise, flat, almost like a like a pancake, it was so dehydrated) and cannot get it to a vet for fluid therapy, then this is worth trying as the bird will probably die otherwise.

You need sterile saline (or ringers/hartmans), and a sterile syringe with a sterile needle (I had 22G 3/4" so that was what I used), and you need to warm the fluid to ~body temp. My incubator was on at the time so I was loading the syringe and then putting it in the incubator for half an hr or so.

The only other treatment I gave the duckling was some egg yolk syringe fed once a day on days 3,4,5 a warm hottie each night, and put electrolytes in its water (not even sure if it drank any) over days 3-4. Oh and On about day 4 I did give it some nystatin after reading that a lot of GI blockages could be due to fungal infections in the crop or gizzard. it was soon after this that it started eating, so not sure if that was coincidence or that it did have a fungal gi infection. either way i am sure it wouldn't have been alive to give nystatin to on day 4 without the fluids before that...

I started giving 5ml but that was because i only had one sterile syringe on hand which was a 5ml one. Having said that, doing it by myself the first time, the 5ml syringe was easier to handle. Holding the duckling in place was possibly easier than doing it alone on an adult, plus the duckling was too sick to struggle or move at first. later as it recovered it was much more wiggly when held, but by then was used to the injection procedure and seemed to know to stay still. I read somewhere that an adult large bird needs 30ml each injection, and from that just made a guesstimate for the duckling which was about 2 and a half weeks old and a wild mallard so obviously smaller than a domestic. I think the 5 ml 3-4 times a day i started with was probably less than ideal. but enough to keep it from dying of dehydration.


sorry don't have direct link to the video as its on my iPad and the screen for the iPad broke just before Christmas and hasn't been fixed yet so i cant use it...my iPad is NOT doing as well as the duckling lol...