Wry neck or other condition in newborn duck.

[Duckloveportugal]

Can you gently pull his legs out straight or will they not move?

Great news to hear the little one drank water by himself.

His legs only go halfway back but i am not applying much pressure

 

[Miss Lydia]

Could be slipped tendons if you can get the legs to bend in normal position you might be able to feel if the tendon is in the normal position and slip it back in if not.
It's not a fast fix but maybe you can find something here.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/foot-problem-in-a-3-week-old-duckling.1091634/

 

[Miss Lydia]

Just thinking out loud here but I wonder if placing the ducklings legs down into nice warm water would relax them enough you can feel the back of the legs for slipped tendons. and this is what I wanted to share
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...of-slipped-tendons-in-bantam-duckling.987977/

 

[CSKA]

https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0CR6FYQKG?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
Thats the one.

The typical incubator temperatures are 37.5 or 37.7 (but they are not always calibrated). Given how premature it went, I would suggest using 37.5 next time. If they are like 1 day ahead of time its okay.

 

[Duckloveportugal]

The typical incubator temperatures are 37.5 or 37.7 (but they are not always calibrated). Given how premature it went, I would suggest using 37.5 next time. If they are like 1 day ahead of time its okay.

I still got 11 eggs in the incubator. I just lowered the temperature to 37.5.
Should i only do it next time and keep these ones as it was?

 

[Duckloveportugal]

Update day 3 -
They are all alive, the twisted one is managing to drink a little bit on his own, i haven't seen him eating without my help yet.
The crooked leg one is so cute and just crawl all around and drinks and eat with no problem.
The other 2 are growing so big and are very active running around all the time.

Medication -
All 4 of them are getting a drop of oliveoil with the vitamin B. Once in the morning and again at night. I found the easiest way to give it to them was to put a drop in a bit of water the drop will float and they will aim right at it.
They also have water with the multivitamin dosed at 1/4 what they recommended for humans (no idea if this is too much or 2 little.). I sprinkled some nutritional yeast on their water and food. (the yeast is fortified with VitB complex).

I put some grass clippings inside and they seem to love it. Do they need any kind of grit?

Sorry not to reply u earlier Miss Lydia.
But selenium is present in the chick feed i am giving them so i guessed it was better not to give them some more due to the possible toxicity of it.

Incubator -
I lowered the temperature to 37.5 and i still have 11 eggs inside.
No sign of pipping yet. Should i put them back on the rollers? Anything I can do to increase my chances after my mistake of not putting the eggs at the same time?.

New Eggs are coming -
I bought 12 Indian runner eggs from a very reputable breeder in France. CSKA warned me that the genetic diversity of khaki campbells and indian runners in Portugal is very low. So i decided to bring some from abroad.
Anyone knows were I could get my hands in a dozen khaki Campbells eggs? I tried buying them from the UK but i was told they aren't allowed to mail them since Brexit.

And Thank you so much everyone!

 

[CSKA]

I put some grass clippings inside and they seem to love it. Do they need any kind of grit?


Incubator -
I lowered the temperature to 37.5 and i still have 11 eggs inside.
No sign of pipping yet. Should i put them back on the rollers? Anything I can do to increase my chances after my mistake of not putting the eggs at the same time?.

New Eggs are coming -
I bought 12 Indian runner eggs from a very reputable breeder in France. CSKA warned me that the genetic diversity of khaki campbells and indian runners in Portugal is very low. So i decided to bring some from abroad.
Anyone knows were I could get my hands in a dozen khaki Campbells eggs? I tried buying them from the UK but i was told they aren't allowed to mail them since Brexit.

Hello,

About Grit, use of grit is because sometimes there could be obstruction of the digestive system (it is rare though). I use fine sand while they are small, but for ducks what is important is to never let water run out, because their digestion requires water to push down and that is the major factor to prevent obstructions.

I would just keep at 37.5 for now, but nothing guarantees us that the incubator itself is properly calibrated. Next incubation you verify the timing when they hatch and if too soon or too late you make further adjustments. All termometers shift in time.

About Rollers, can you have zones with rollers for pre-last 3 days and another one without rollers for the last 3 days? You can also choose to manually rotate the necessary ones, but opening and closing can create the shrink wrap effect on the hatching ones.

About buying eggs from France. I would have first run a test with cheap eggs to ensure your incubator runs fine and only after I would put money into expensive imported eggs, but it's your call. Also about consanguinity the idea of an import is to mix local and imported. That is how you cut consanguinity by combining different origins. By importing from France, that breeder possibly has multiple generations of siblings ("reputable" is just a trust concept).

As an idea if you are not aiming at purity you can cross Khakis with Runners (do some research but I don't think there's any problem with that, but do make some research)

 

[Duckloveportugal]

Hello,

About Grit, use of grit is because sometimes there could be obstruction of the digestive system (it is rare though). I use fine sand while they are small, but for ducks what is important is to never let water run out, because their digestion requires water to push down and that is the major factor to prevent obstructions.

I would just keep at 37.5 for now, but nothing guarantees us that the incubator itself is properly calibrated. Next incubation you verify the timing when they hatch and if too soon or too late you make further adjustments. All termometers shift in time.

About Rollers, can you have zones with rollers for pre-last 3 days and another one without rollers for the last 3 days? You can also choose to manually rotate the necessary ones, but opening and closing can create the shrink wrap effect on the hatching ones.

About buying eggs from France. I would have first run a test with cheap eggs to ensure your incubator runs fine and only after I would put money into expensive imported eggs, but it's your call. Also about consanguinity the idea of an import is to mix local and imported. That is how you cut consanguinity by combining different origins. By importing from France, that breeder possibly has multiple generations of siblings ("reputable" is just a trust concept).

As an idea if you are not aiming at purity you can cross Khakis with Runners (do some research but I don't think there's any problem with that, but do make some research)

The breeder in France is actually an acquaintance of mine, he has even imported ducks from Java 15 years ago to add more to his genepool. He is very old and getting a bit senile unfortunately.
Well the run with cheap eggs was this first one, they were the first eggs that my khaki campbells laid after i bought them (all female about 1-2 year old.) They had just mated before i got them.
Will do the rollers, but at what timing should i take them out of the rollers?

 

[CSKA]

The breeder in France is actually an acquaintance of mine, he has even imported ducks from Java 15 years ago to add more to his genepool. He is very old and getting a bit senile unfortunately.
Well the run with cheap eggs was this first one, they were the first eggs that my khaki campbells laid after i bought them (all female about 1-2 year old.) They had just mated before i got them.
Will do the rollers, but at what timing should i take them out of the rollers?

You remove the rollers 3 complete days before expected time of hatch. So, expected time (28 days) - 3 days.

For instance, ducks takes 28 days expected:

So rollers and humidity between (45% - 55%) until end of 25 days, And NO rollers and humity 65% +, between 26 (inclusive) and 28.

Note that if you temperature was too high and things got sped up the math above needs to be adjusted.

 

[Duckloveportugal]

Hey guys sorry for no updates!
We got some sad news and a good one.
the duckling with the leg problem didnt make it.
But the wry neck one is doing sooo much better since today!
Yesterday we tought he was going to die. He was barelly stading up and falling backwards every time he would get up.
We gave him a parsley salad with drops of that oliveoil with vitamin e and he loved it.
And today he woke up full of energy his neck is still twisted but so much better. He had no more problem standing up and walking and didnt fall once today. They all had some play time outside!