URGENT duckling eye infection

[SixBabies]

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I either put mine in the bath or laundry room wash tub. I make sure they can touch bottom till they get older and float better. Usually 10 mins to start.

Awwwe so cute! Got to do this soon!

 

[SixBabies]

I just let them play no need to wash they'll do that themselves. I do not recommend ever using dawn or any kind of oil cutting soap on ducks. Unless they have something on them that needs cleaned off for their safety. Because doing that to a healthy duck or ducklings will destroy all their protective oils they naturally have on them.

Yeah that was my intuition thank you for clarifying!

 

[AshVau22]

It's also a good idea incase you haven't already to have a plan in place for what you will do if you have to many drakes.

 

[SixBabies]

I did pay extra to get them all female sexed, and I can at least confirm by picking them up that they make the loud squeak peep girl sound

But I can’t garuntee they are all of course, very rare but they could have a genetic mutation that impacts the phenotype or something else went wrong in the process to end up with males.

So good idea to work that out!


I have thought long term about maybe getting one male call duck once my girls are a little older.


I REALLY wanted a call duck but they don’t lay eggs and right now I’m looking to switch over to homestead duck eggs from grocery store chicken eggs.
So maybe since call ducks don’t lay very many eggs if I get a male call duck and then I can have the best of both worlds!

 

[AshVau22]

This is to give you an idea of how fast ducks grow. This 4 weeks. These are pekins and khaki Campbell. They moved out shortly after this picture. They spent the day outside but still liked coming in. It was still pretty chilly. I've never owned call ducks. I don't have an enclosed area all my birds run on an acre of fenced in yard with coops for night time.

 

[SixBabies]

I have six ducklings all only a couple of days old. Just called the feed and farm supply store in town today and they just learned today while I was on the phone asking if they had it that due to FDA regulations they are now are no longer able to stock Terrimycin.

The emergency vet right near me does ducks but their doctor who sees ducks is out (sounds like indefinitely from the call?) on sick/injury leave.

The next closest one is super far away and got me an appointment the day after tomorrow at 12pm. I have been dealing with this since 3am this morning. It is currently 5pm. I haven’t been able to even do the dishes I’ve only eaten breakfast.

Will she make it to Wednesday afternoon? I probably need to get an Uber out there and back and have someone watch the rest of them which is super annoying. Unclear if my boyfriend is gone or not for the next few days he missed a train.

I will have to bring the little brood plate and the generator and plus the big heat plate into the wall and separate them. And I need someone to watch the rest for me while they are gone.

Everyone else seems okay so far I am thinking about isolating her but she will be sad and lonely and she doesn’t seem to be spreading it, but that could change and I learned my lesson raising (failing to, actually) [edit: the words “Ceannothus silk moths” got cut off here.] last year

The vet said don’t do anything yet and to not put neosporin because it’s not safe for duck eyes but it’s all I have access to and I have heard mixed results.

I have some sterile saline I’ve been putting into her eyes before I only had clean disposable cloth with water.

I don’t want her to go blind/die etc from infection and I don’t want to make it worse.

please any advice or experiences on this will be so dearly appreciated, blessings

okay it won’t let me update the post via edit now but that’s okay! Issue resolved! Thank you all so much for the help and support!! <3

I’ll post more normal happy updates and stuff soon around and poke around other peoples threads to check things out and get back to any messages and replies soon~

We had to wait 3 days to get her to the vet so I carefully made and gave her sterile saline solution (wasn’t any at the store except content lense solution and that seemed wrong based on the ingredients) every few hours as needed while we waited.

By that point there were several other issues that came up and were addressed. Used the tiny brooder to take her to the vet (THEY LOVED HER!) and got the antibiotics. Eye, foot/skin, and oral by that point (didn’t end up needing the oral but they were trying to use the hemp bedding as grit and it wasn’t safe).

Duck also had some issues of the same sort so I put a little of Ducky’s prescription on her as they only let one duck in at a time and I have 6 and at $100+ per visit meds that’s not happening. They are all doing much better now!

Probably ready for a little bit of bathtub they are getting gross but much easier to clean out their new big enclosure!

Some feathers coming in. Very exciting. Just about two weeks old so switching food soon. I have a bit more starter feed coming in so I’ll mix that with the other stuff.,other stuff is new country organics poultry feed and I’m adding nutritional yeast.

They are also getting meal worms as snacks and the occasional plain cooked egg yolk to share.

Going to add sand for grit (it’s the kind that is fine but corse, the kind when you call emergency flood services to bring you bags of sand to patch your swamp hahah).

Finally figured out how they liked to be picked up - they really want their feet supported especially Duck and Ducky with their back/wing injuries healing. They are really starting to like me!

Thankfully the new pool fit in the living room.
They will outgrow it fast in terms of height so I have a couple long baby gates coming in two days to wrap around.

The dog is sort of a fan he has been very patient and sweet with them before he would look like 18”+ degrees away in fear as if they were kittens who might bite him in the face. He sleeps in the living room too and aside from being mildly annoyed with the sound seemed happy to be warm and cozy near them.
<3