The Quack Shack

[Canadian Wind]

Greetings! Another hot and muggy day. Weekend supposed to be cooler, and early next week downright unseasonably so.

Have some baby bunnies:

Yes, the cage needs to be cleaned. I just took out the nesting box.

 

[Supercow]

Nutritional yeast or Brewer's yeast? just beware not all brewers yeast has B3 in it. But sprinkle 1 Tab for each cup of feed.

I believe it's repurposed brewer's yeast. It's from Hungary and the writing is in Hungarian only. It's a tough language but niacin is called niacin So it seems OK.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Woken up by a fur coat. Don't think he liked the extra dog in the yard tonight. Extra dog very pleased with his new found security bark. Husband came across 3 foxes within 5 metres when I sent him on hunt this morning, not including the big fur coat I sent him after. We will get him

 

[Pyxis]

@Pyxis @Magnolia Ducks @shawluvsbirds - do you have any experience with a still air incubator? Should…
… the eggs just be placed on top of the gel-pack, the warmth will spread from below through the whole egg… the eggs be placed on top of the gel-pack and covered with a cotton cloth (there came one with the incubator)… something else be done with the eggs.

I have literally never heard of an incubator with a gel pack like that - you can use water bottles and such in an incubator as a heat sink, but placing eggs on top of a large gel pack that spans the whole incubator is a new one to me, lol.

Where is the heating element? In most incubators it's above the eggs, so the following advice is based on that.

Still air, the temperature should be 101.5 F measured at the tops of the eggs. Since there isn't air circulation, they are prone to hot and cold spots, so it's good to rotate the eggs around to different spots in the incubator when you turn them

 

[Supercow]

A Junior update...

It is her day 6 with us. Condition remains so-so ... She'll run for 5 m / 15 ft and then plop down and just sit there like a toy duck. Will occassionally peck at grass experimentally but nothing at all like the other ducks who are always active.

She'll eat but only if you place food directly in front of her. She'll drink but just a little. She won't dunk her head in the water to clean the nares.

Contrary to the first several days, the other ducks care less and less about whether she manages to stay in the group, and will not react so easily (call back, come running) anymore when she is separated and calls out to them.

This is what we're doing:

- placed in a dog crate inside the duck coop overnight with food and medicated water (vitamin cocktail, lots of niacin) in the crate, the bowls being out of reach of other ducks; the only time we reliably know that she's been eating and that means mostly lettuce, peas and corn (barley not so much, chicken crumble hardly at all)

- whole or cracked corn - doesn't seem to matter, both options are eaten to the same degree

- attempts at feeding over the day while free to roam - very mixed results

- dunk her head in the water (we hold her close to the surface and she dunks by herself), morning, noon, evening - seems to enjoy that but would never do it on her own

Additionally, there seems to be some kind of infection? around one eye, and on the wings, the feathers have just the quills (the "stems"), the fine feathery part is not there. (You can see both problems if you enlarge the photo.) Also the feathers do not seem waterproof (looks soaked after rain, grooms for an hour afterwards).

I'm not very optimistic about how this works out.

Today she seems a little less strong and a little more confused than yesterday. I placed her in a large dog crate over the day, located roughly where the flock likes to stay, and put in medicated water and food as I would overnight. This way at least we'll know for sure how much she's eating and drinking.

In my general experience once a creature (plant or animal) is weak all kinds of problems just start piling up. My fear is that this would eventually lead to something which would also affect the other ducks who seem to be in great shape. This is the other reason for trying a large crate over the day again.

If I am misusing this topic and should open a separate one, please let me know.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Look like she is growing in her flight feathers. For the eye do you have anything to use to treat it? could be dust or something else that could be inside the lid causing this. If you can't get terramycin eye ointment you can use saline by making a rinse there are recipes online. It maybe the fact she isn't dunking her head. She may not get any better but at least your doing all you can. That's the main thing. I hope she does she looks very sweet.
I doubt she has anything to pass onto the other ducks or you'd most likely already see it since she has been with them all this time.

 

[Supercow]

We went to the vet and were received by a vet lady who has ducks herself. Could not get any better.

She says the weird looking feathers and the general "preowned" look are simply representative of the fact that Junior is in a molt. What I took to be sad remains of feathers are actually perfectly good starts of new feathers, as you say @Miss Lydia .

No internal or external parasites were found (visual, sticky tape, microscope). This is really great.

The eye thing seems to be an infection and we got an antibiotic for it, to be delivered every 12 hours orally.

The vet says there's a good chance that once the infection clears up and the new feathers are done, it will simply be a case of a duck with a bad previous environment- undernourished, underdeveloped, could pull out of that in its new home and improved conditions.

We were also advised to try and add dog food to the diet as we don't have cats but do have a young dog who switched away from super strong puppy food awhile ago.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My flock loves dog food they get it every day along with their mealworms for a treat. just make sure the kibble is small so she can swallow it okay. I like your vet she sounds like what we need here. We have to travel far distances to see a vet who knows poultry.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Greetings! The small heat wave we had finally broke, but now we have high winds. That's alright, it should keep the mosquitoes at bay!

Supercow, glad to hear the little one saw someone competent! Hopefully she starts doing better from now on!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

First experiences with the CCI
(Cheap Chinese Incupator)​

The temperature as per the built-in sensor is stable between 37.5° and 37.7° (99.5 - 99.9F)
How accurate that sensor is, i don't know.

However, this morning i threw one of the sensor modules of my cheap chinese weather-station (CCWS) into the incubator and it was measuring 34.4° (93.9F) the whole day long. In the evening i covered the sensor with a plastic container and since then it shows 35.1° (95.1F).

So the gel-packs are being held at a constant temperature of 37.5° but the air temperature within the incubator is ~2.5° cooler. There is no fan moving the air around in that box.

@Pyxis @Magnolia Ducks @shawluvsbirds - do you have any experience with a still air incubator? Should…

… the eggs just be placed on top of the gel-pack, the warmth will spread from below through the whole egg​

… the eggs be placed on top of the gel-pack and covered with a cotton cloth (there came one with the incubator)​

… something else be done with the eggs.​

As said, i am not planning on hatching eggs from start to the end in that thing, its just in case of an emergency situation, when a duck leaves the nest with the first hatched ducklings and abandons the remaining eggs that are in different stages of development.

My mistake, i should have simplified my question to:
Do you have any experience with a still air incubator?

My little cheap Chinese Incubator does not have a fan inside to move the air around, instead there is only a heating element at the bottom, that is supposed to be covered by a bag of water, supporting and warming the eggs. I just have replaced that bag with a freezer gel-pack. A temperature probe that i have placed on top of this gel-pack reads 37.4° (99.3F) with the sensor at the bottom and 34.9° (94.8F) whith the sensor at the top. Now that probe is made out of plastic which is a poor heat conductor compared to a duck egg.

As far as my experience with duck mommas goes, they do develop razor sharp teeth in their bills but do not develop fans in their bellies before they sat down on their eggs, so in nature eggs are also not being heated evenly from all sides. That's one of the reasons why momma duck is turning the eggs multiple times a day.

I just don't know if i should leave the eggs uncovered on top of that gel-pack or i should cover them with something like the cotton cloth that came with the incubator?

And yes i know i will have to turn the eggs multiple times a day.