Rural Gardening: Duck with a prolapse type of problem - icky pictures warning, 1 by DrDoolotz

DrDoolotz wrote:
I have a duck problem. I have never experienced this before and I'm not sure what to do about it. I do not have qualms about attempting my own vet work on a duck, so any advice is much appreciated.

Yesterday we found one of our ducks with the symptoms in the picture. She has no other wounds or anything. To me, it looks like a prolapsed something-or-other. When she breathes, the sort of pinkish part at the bottom fills with air, and then goes down again. The drakes were after her (they are always after the females) and I was horrified to see her being pursued with this problem. She was actively bleeding at the time. I have separated her and gave her food and water. I was not sure she would make it through the night, but sure enough, this morning she was not only fine, she had also laid an egg (ouch). The eggshell had blood on it but was otherwise normal.

She is behaving normally, she can run, she can eat and poop. That said, this looks awful and seems like it is a prime area for infection of some sort. Ducks have two "openings" in the rear and both of the openings are part of what has been pushed outwards. If I try to push the material back in, it seems to cause pain (she flaps around a lot) and it pops right back out when the sac part fills with air.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I could do a suture (or several) if I knew where to do it. Should I treat with antibiotics to prevent infections? As I said, she is otherwise behaving normally, eating, drinking, etc, and not appearing to be on death's door or anything (despite the horribleness of how it looks) so I wonder if it is best to just leave her alone for a few days, or to take active steps.

Claire