Year old Pekin duck sinking

[ladybug99]

I have a year old peking duck, my boy friend found her two nights ago exhausted barely keeping herself afloat in our pond. He fished her out and she went into the duck house for the night. Today I find her again sinking in the pond. I fished her out... she is not injured in any way, healthy, quacking and hanging out with the other ducks...she can't seem to lift herself up to get over the pond's edge.. they have a ramp to get out of the pond but don't use it at all... the only thing I noticed is she has no wing feathers! Is it possible she is molting? or is there a more serious underlying problem here? I tried to separate her but it totally stressed her out... so she is back with the rest for now

 

[Amiga]

She could be molting, she could have wet feather caused by mites. She also may be weak for some reason - sometimes an infection will run them down but they won't let on.

If you can get her to a vet for evaluation that would be good. Otherwise, look for other signs of infection - legs particularly warm, tarry feces, breathing difficulty, anything out of the ordinary.

See if you can come up with a way to get close enough to her briefly to check for mites.

 

[ladybug99]

I checked her for mites and did not see any thing crawling on her or in their house. I gave the enclosure a good cleaning and dusted it for mites just in case. I filled up a little kiddie pool the other day and she has chosen to go in it rather than the big pond. She is losing a lot of feathers. I guess she is just molting.... but can ducks not swim when they molt??

 

[Speceider]

No primaries....she's molting.

Clint