Backyard Poultry Forum

Age: 3 weeks
Breed: Muscovy
Sex:?

Your Location- country, state
Tasmania, Australia

What is wrong? What symptoms have you noted?
One of my Muscovies recently had ducklings. She is a free range duck. Today I noticed two of the ducklings just sitting by the edge of the dam. One was very floppy, couldn't hold its head up and was lying on its side. The other was just sitting there. I tried to get the one that was sitting to stand up but it couldn't and just sat. The mother was ignoring them. I took them into the house and put them in a warm room. I offered them food but they ignored it. The floppy one got floppier and then started having twitchy kinda convulsions and then died. I examined them for injuries, discharges and ticks and found nothing. The other ducklings still with the mother seem fine.

What are you feeding?
They are free ranging and are on a big dam so they will be getting plenty of invertebrates. I have also been supplementary feeding them with chick starter. The starter has no coccicidiostat.

Full droppings description.
I haven't seen any dropping from them as yet.There is no evidence of droppings on them.

Respiratory Changes?
The sitting one seems to be breathing normally.

Digestive Changes?- Not eating or drinking.

Condition Changes?- The remaining one seems to not be thin and continues to just sit.

Behavioral Changes? They were not with the mother and the other ducklings. The mother was ignoring them.

Agility Changes? - The floppy one got floppier before it died. The other one remains just sitting but still can't stand.

Describe your usual worming routine and products. Not wormed.

Any other recent medications? no

Other changes? – We had 38 degrees two days ago and now its 12

I'm sorry about your duckling...

It sounds very much like a toxicity reaction to me. Possibly from eating something decaying. Eating lead is another possibility - eg. lead shot or sinkers that they have found in the dam.

If you have some bird vitamins then make up a double strength dose and give the second duckling some in an eye dropper (drop it onto the side of the bill, or see if you can get it to drink from the eye dropper). Is the duckling drinking on its own?

I would also try to get the other ducklings and Mum off the dam. Go and have a good look around the edges and shallow parts of the dam for anything that looks like it's decaying any patches of toxic looking algae. If there's led shot out there then it will be hard to see but keep an eye out for that kind of thing as well.

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Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks

Thanks for your reply. Sadly the other one died in the night. With the really hot weather and the dams evaporating as we watch I suppose it is not surprising there might be toxic algae around I'll try to catch the mother and the rest of the ducklings but, while I am sure I will get her, the ducklings shoot off onto the dam at the first sign of alarm. I will put lots of food out for them in the hope that they will prefer it to things that will kill them!

Thanks again.

I’m sorry about the second duckling...

When dam levels drop you get exposure of metals/lead etc that had previously been inaccessible...

Hope it was just a one-off occurrence and all is well from now on.

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Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks