We brought our six ducks down to the pond yesterday afternoon and that night, we couldn't see them, so we figured they were sleeping in the high grass. This morning, my husband went down and found one duck (a white one) brutalized and in really bad condition. He was devastated, because he thought the other five had been killed. I went down and found the other five alive and well, thank goodness. So, now we've got this poor duck, and I don't know what to do for him. His bill is scratched bloody and he's in a sleeping/sitting position, but he sounds like he's snoring (fluid in his lungs?). He's pretty unresponsive, and hasn't touched the food or water my husband put out for him. (He's in a small coop isolated from the rest of the birds). I'd like to clean him up to see if I can evaluate his situation, but I have no idea what's safe and what's not, or if I'd be doing him more harm than good. His body seems okay - he's just got blood around his neck and face, but I think that's from his bill. My father-in-law thinks a snapping turtle was trying to pull him down by his bill to drown him in the water, but that's a total guess. It's Saturday, and we don't have a poultry/bird vet yet, and I feel totally unprepared for this kind of thing. So far, the few chickens/guineas that have died have just died suddenly, with no obvious trauma. I need some advice, the quicker the better. Thanks everyone!
Duck Emergency, Please Help
I read that maggots are a major concern. We're going to bring him inside and clean his bill with hydrogen peroxide. I'll check back in a bit and hopefully I'll have more information. Thanks guys!
So sorry about your duck, I have no ducks nor have I ever, so I don't know how to help except to say good luck and sorry about your situation...Hay
Warning - the photo I've attached is hard to look at.
Well, we got him cleaned up as best we could. I cleaned the bill with Hydrogen Peroxide and smeared it with some ointment and sprinkled his bill with cornstarch to stem the bleeding. His bill is cracked in a number of places, so I'm not sure if he's going to eat or how to feed him. We're going to soup up his water with sugar and some VitaRX(?) so he can have some calories, but that's not going to work long-term obviously. He's still got quite a bit of fight in him, but he's got blood coming out of his nostrils and he may have an injury on the side of his face, it's hard to tell - he struggles when I try to wipe at it. We've got him in a large dog kennel lined with newspaper and covered around the sides in a sheet to make it less drafty and make him feel more secure. I'm going to research some more, but from having parrots, I thought that beaks don't regenerate...I wonder if his bill will heal? If not, he's going to have a really hard time eating. Gah - this is terrible.
oh how horrible. If a turtle was trying to pull him under he probably has water in his lung and will probably get pneumonia. Mix up some vitamin water and use a dropper to get some down him as often as you can. Put some antibiotic cream on his bill thinly but don't get it in the nasal holes
We managed (with the help of our Blue Heeler mutt) to get the remaining five ducks back up to the barn. Now, since we're so pissed off, our main goal (aside from nursing this duck to health) is to annihilate the snapping turtle population in our pond. :(
I have a .22, but our pond is teeming with those buggers. Aside from dynamite (ha!), any other thoughts on that? I'll keep you guys posted about this duck. Gotta name him too - before he was just "one of the white ones"...
I would suggest some cottage cheese for him to eat - nice and soft. Not sure that the bill will heal if it is cracked. I don't think they regenerate but I could be wrong. I would suggest an antibiotic to prevent infection. Duramycin/terramycin is OK for ducks. It goes in their water. He is probably in shock which would explain his lack of interest in food and water, but hopefully that will pass.
Poor little thing,hope he makes it
The cornstarch hasn't done much to stem the bleeding - is the quick-cut stuff more effective? I can't tell if he's bleeding from his bill, or if the blood is mostly coming from his nostrils. I wish I was a stronger woman - I'd put the poor thing out of its misery.
go to your feed store. They have stuff to stop bleeding. I got some Wonder Dust at mine when I pinioned some baby duck just in case there was any bleeding. It says it is for horses and show stock and is a dressing powder & blood coagulant for use on certain kinds of wounds, cuts, and abrasions
We have blood stop powder, but those quick-stop pencils that are for men's shaving needs are very effective too.
Wonder Dust will stop bleeding but it is also slightly caustic. I'd go with the alum based blood-stoppers.
Oh gosh, that is horrible! Poor thing! I am no help when it comes to ducks, but I sure wish you the best!
I"m very sorry about the poor guy. I just lost a bunch of chickens to a fox a few minutes ago. its hard. When i was a kid, grandpa had a lot of snapping turtles.. i remember one thing. We knew that when someone yelled turtle you grabbed the shot gun not the .22 & you ran fast making sure you never got closer than 20 ft to the turtle. They can move very fast when they want too. I've seen them come up out of the water & go after my uncle when he was trying to shoot it with a little .22. now i am not sure if a .22 will kill them or not.. i just know grandpa used the 12 gauge & shot 2 times before approaching the turtle. We always waited 30 minutes before approaching it also. As you've seen their bite is horrible. Please be careful when you go after them.
Oh no! I'm sorry Grey.. that is horrible.
Sorry to hear about that Greykyttyn. I petted a snapping turtle that was on my property last year...I didn't know they could move that fast. She didn't seem to mind. She was an odd looking thing, sort of pointy at all places. I don't imagine they'd go after a duck on land, but I guess in the water they do. Yikes.
Oh, grey, I'm so sorry about your chickens! I swear, they should make little chicken bubbles that are predator proof and allow for total free ranging safety. I feel like my heart is sitting out in my coop. :(
Well, Leonidas (as my husband has dubbed the injured duck), seems to be doing better. His one eye looks a little yucky - kind of runny and partially closed. I'm terrified to put that ointment we used on Popeye (my one-eyed chicken) since it didn't do squat for her. I am not sure what to do about it aside from clean it. My main concern now is getting him to eat. we've been putting really watered down feed and even soupy oatmeal in with him, but he seems to only want to drink the water (which is laced with sugar and VetRX). Do I need to feed him with a turkey baster or what?
He may be OK for several days with just the water he's getting. Ducks usually have quite a bit of fat. We had a chicken that we nursed back from being attacked by a hawk. She had a lot of head wounds. Had one eye closed up for quite a while. She went a few days without food, although she would drink water if we dipped her beak.
I finally got her eating by making layer pellets really really soupy/watery, and dipping some up with a spoon and holding the spoon up so her beak was in it. She realized there was food there and would slurp it up. Then she was able to eat on her own, although, because she kept one eye closed, her depth perception was way off, and she'd aim for the dish and miss. She'd keep trying though. It was rather comical in a way.
If he's used to drinking from the water dish and knows where it is, you could try putting a few bits of duck feed in it. Just a few at first, so it's still very much like water, and then if he keeps drinking it, gradually add more.
Glad to hear he is making some improvement.
Thoughts about the water....could you put some Poly-vi-sol drops in it? I use those in the water for my chicks when they are young and it's easy to add - it's a baby vitamin mixture of some sort. You can get it in the grocery store. Also, when I milk a sheep or bottle feed a lamb, I sometimes put a little milk in a dish and the chickens and ducks eat it up in seconds. I wonder if you could offer him some milk? At least it has some protein in it. Also, I wondered about watered down yogurt. I also wondered about oil - I have this supplement called "kickin' chicken" that is an oil that you add to feed for extra energy, etc. I use it in winter. There would be some nutrient value in giving him a little vegetable oil mixed in with the water, and he would not notice I wouldn't think. Plus it would give him some needed calories.
He has been drinking water with feed disolved in it, so that's good. Thanks for all of the advice. I don't know when he's okay to put with the other ducks? Once he's eating on his own, regular food?
About those turtles......you can get turtle traps. Probably from Tractor Supply or another store like it. Or your local farmer's co-op. You might ask around. Several people around here will come and trap persky turtles. I think they sell them. I've been told the guys around here don't charge anything, they just want to harvest your turtles. I can't say I know much about the turtle selling business--and it might just be a local thing--but we have two turtle infested stock tanks (ponds) and I've had a couple of guys stop in to ask if we would let them trap the turtles.
So far I've said "no" as I don't what strangers on the property. But I want some duck and some geese. DH wants a couple of swans (!?!). It sounds as if I will need to get rid of those turtles. Some are huge!
I hope your duck gets better soon. Having a sick animal is just as bad as having a sick child for me. I even wory about a sick animal kept for stock.
Snapping turtles are very delish. Make great soup. Hope the duck makes it.
CajuninKy, "Leonidas" (as we subsequently named him) is doing great. He looks a little worse for the wear, but aside from his quack being a lot softer, he's eating and flapping and generally frolicking around as normal. I'm just sad we can't have them live on the pond. I've never eaten turtle, but maybe this summer we'll give it a go. I'm getting a lot less squeamish about life in general, so maybe gutting a turtle (do you gut a turtle?!?) is in the cards. :)
Cut it's head off and imerse the whole carcass in boiling water for a few minutes. It softens the shell so you can cut through the bottom of it. Cut through whee it attaches to the top shell. It is delish. A cajun staple.
What is there in there to eat?
Donna is right, use an antibiotic cream, never use hydrogen peroxide on flesh wounds for animals or people, it kills live flesh.
Lots of delish meat. You will be suprised and delighted.
Really? I remember dissecting a turtle in Comparative Anatomy; it looked pretty hollow to me.
Was it an adult snapper?
I know we have at least one gigantic snapper, but really, since they don't sunbathe, we have no idea - the pond is 3 acres, so there could be billions in there and we wouldn't have a clue.
We didn't use peroxide on him - just water and then cornstarch to stem the bleeding. He's doing wonderfully. Still looks a little rough, but it doesn't seem to affect his well-being.
I don't agree about peroxide. I've used peroxide all my life for humans and animals. Hydrogen peroxide kills all known germs by oxidizing them. All our vets used it.. Never had any dead flesh.
Concentrated hydrogen peroxide will burn flesh, but at the normal 3% over the counter concentration it is minimally caustic and works very well to kill pathogens and stop capillary bleeding. I would use it without worrying too much. It probably does burn a little.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide
And I love to watch it fizzle!
Put it in your ear and listen to it. Kewl!
mevnmart, folks around here trap and sell snapping turtles. I don't know anything about it other than being asked if I would lease my pond out for someone to trap on my property. I said no as I didn't know what it would involve. You might want to check into it, though. I was told at the time that there was good money in turtles (I'm not joking--honest)! I'm in NE TX so we really aren't that far from each other.
Terri, my husband was actually interested in trapping ours and making some money (farm living hasn't proved super lucrative yet, so every opportunity must be exploited!!!). We found three red-earred sliders in our pool, one mom (?) and two babies. The babies are less than 4 inches long though, so it's illegal to sell them (although that's all the pet stores want is the tiny ones). The mom is probably 8" long or so, and is probably too big to sell as a pet, but too small to eat. We're looking into how to make our own turtle traps since the commercial ones are crazy expensive. Also, a lot of folks think it's bad to take them out of the wild for pets, but for us, the only other option is to shoot them, and I'm not sure which is worse. We also have scads of box turtles roaming around, but since they are tricky to care for adequately, we've just been setting them free in an area where they're safer from our dogs. I don't want to do anything illegal, but I want to get rid of them and making a little money at it wouldn't suck!
It seem like these are sold to eating purposes. If I happen to come accross anyone who does this I will try and get some valid info and forward it to you. I don't get out much to mingle with neighbors, etc. as I work most of the time. My son knew the fella who wanted to lease the trapping rights to the pond. I'm not sure if he still knows how to get in touch with him. But I'll keep my ear open and see if anyone can share some info.
Thanks, Terri. As I understand it, a lot of turtles are exported to parts of Asia for food. (And to Asian food markets here in the U.S.). I'll do some research too, but I appreciate your keeping your ear to the ground!
The sliders won't give your ducks any problems.
Cajun, I knew that - but those guys are easy to see (since they sunbathe). It's those darn snappers that stay underwater forever that we're unsure of. Just how many are there? How big are they? How can we most effectively dispatch the bastages? Etc., etc... :)