The Migratory/Ornamental Waterfowl INFO Thread

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yep, I've spend countless hours just sitting in the ol pens watching them, no better theropy... and yep love the sounds they make, whistles, peeps, even grunts, but not much "quacking" To me there was never any coller sound than the treeduck whistles

 

[KansasKid]

I have a question about behavior. One of my mandarin drakes hasn't been real perky lately. I have noticed every time i look into the pen that he is always on the ground even if everyone else is on a perch. It also seems like that every time im in the pen everyone fly's to the opposite end of the pen to get away from me but he stays in the corner and usually waits till i get close or move to the opposing corner and then he justs runs. I know he can fly because today when i filled up water i pressured him a little and he flew a short distance to the others but when i looked in the pen later everyone was up in the water preening (my kiddie pool sits a good 4ft of the ground) and he was sitting in the shade on the ground. Should i be worried here? What could be causing this change? He has always been the docile one but he used to love flying up to his tree perch at the top of the pen.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

If you can catch him , I would to check him over, feel his breast bone, make sure he's nice and thick and not loosing weight or anything like that. They are pretty tough disease resistant birds in general, but they still can get sick at times. See if you can watch his poop too, make sure it's not off colored, super runny or just out of the ordinary.
If you do see any of this, I'd quarantine him if possible to be safe,
Hopefully, none of this will be the case, could very well just be all this high heat everyone is having, they are just like us, if it's super hot, they are less active, but any time one act out of the ordinary, it's best to check them out real close.
Let me know if you discover any thing unusual with him

 

[KansasKid]

I saw him poop the other day, I'll look again tomorrow, it was kinda tan color. Good or Bad? What would be a normal color?
He also has a new feather on his side/chest its one of the feathers for his black and white bars, could it be that he is getting ready to change?



Just went out and checked him over, no cuts or anything, one more new chest feather, but was still on the ground when everyone else was in the pool and on the tree branch. His chest bone wasn't sticking out or anything like that but i could feel it. I was feeding a tray of that waterfowl feed that looks like chick starter and chickens scratch with milo, corn, etc. but stopped a while back before fair, I think i might go and get a bag today to see if that makes any type of difference and if not I'll end up feeding it to everything else. also saw today a bit of mold under one of the feed trays and took a shovel and just scooped it all up and threw it out, could this be the culprit?

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

could be, best to keep all moldy stuff out of there.
He sounds okay, the poop should be kind of earth colored, kind of hard to explain, but mainly, not runny. if it's tan and watery, you may want to do 2 things to be safe.
1) a broad spectrum anitbiotic for 3-7 days in the water, and
2) worm them all , I would do this anyway, now that breeding is over, it's the perfect time to do it

 

[KansasKid]

I remember reading Mallard lanes farms method on worming ducks, i believe it was two small drops given orally per 3 pounds of bird, so about one drop. That Sound ok?
I don't have a clue what to use in the way of antibiotics though.


I went and put the chicken scratch back in the feed trays today
and
I Feel a bit better after going out and seeing him perched up on top of the old woodie nest box at noon.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
Go to www.jeffers.com , they have everything you'll need for all of it.

Dose depends highly on what type of wormer you'll be useing and at what concentration it is, Ivermectin and Safegard are the two most commonly used, but both come in various concentrations.
In general, if you can take all other water away for a day or two, put 3cc to a gallon of water of Safegard in their water for 2 days or so, and that'll do the trick.
People say you can do the same with Ivermectin, but it is not water souluable, so it's best given orally, about 1/4 cc per bird tops

 

[KansasKid]

Sorry for the constant flow of questions, I am a total worry wort. Thanks for the tip on the wormer, I might run down and ask the vet a few questions monday if he doesn't start to perk up. Ok one more question. By monday/tuesday if I can't get him to perk up a bit, if I give him an antibiotic like Terramycin in the water for a few days and he wasn't actually sick could it hurt him. and I'm guessing if i ever do decide to give him some that i should separate him from the others so they don't get into it right or do you think that being exposed to him for this long that if he is sick that should all probably get treated?

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

no, in proper dosage, no antibiotic will harm them, you'll be fine to give it to them all. Like you said, If he's been there this long with them, if by some chance he was sickly, they have already been exposed to it, so even if they showed no signs, the antibiotic will help them all, wont hurt a thing either way.
any oxytetracycline based one is great, which is what Terramycin is, as are most brand names.
Hopefully, it's just heat stress, but do keep an eye on him till he perks up.
Could just ne worms too, if they get a big bio load of them, they will show signs of listlessness like you are describing

 

[Matapatos]

I went to a local small town zoo and was looking all their ducks... Tons of them and one lesser scaup hen still had a very small chick with her. Looked to be maybe a week old at most. It was way cool to get out and see some other birds, besides mine, today. I love the birds and can't wait to get my shipment when the weather is good enough!

42 days for the youth, 49 days for me!!

Travis