Help my Poor ducks feathers look terrible

[Janeyfish]

I'm a relatively new Poultry owner and I've noticed over the last month or two that my young Buff Orpington duck that I've raised myself has the most terrible feathers. Her wing feathers and the feathers on her back look wet and manky. It is winter here and I thought that she might be moulting and they are just giving way to new feathers but this hasn't happened. She does a lot of prening or scratching (not sure which it is). I can't see any lice or mites but I'm going to delouse her today anyway. The feathers on the rest of her body are fine and the other two duck look beautiful.

They are semi autonimus duck and hang out in the creek behind the house and graze on the lawn so although there isn't any covered shelther there are plenty of natural shelter areas for them to take cover from the wet weather. I'm worried that she is cold and miserable as she is staying a little apart from the other two.

I would be very grateful for any advise from anyone more experanced than me in the keeping of poultry.

 

[Messy]

Gosh I have no idea, but hopefully someone here will have insight and be able to help. The only idea I have is maybe putting out some really good feed for the ducks? Maybe it is a deficiency of some kind?

 

[FireTigeris]

Sounds like breeding feather loss- Are there drakes?

 

[Janeyfish]

There is a drake but its not that, The more I look at it the more I think that her feathers have just got waterlogged and haven't been able to dry out properly. I might see if I can seperate her from the other two who are fine and put her under cover for a few days.

 

[jak2002003]

do you think she got some oily stuff or grease on the feather from somewhere?

If there are waterlogged you need to get her into some place warm and sheltered as she wont be able to keep herself warm - the feather are her insulation.

If they feed greasy you can give them a wash with some detergent or pet shampoo and then dry her off.

After that you will have to wait a couple of weeks until she can re - waterproof her feathers with oil from her preening gland.

Sometimes a birds preening gland will stop working for some reason and then cant waterproof their feathers, so they will become waterlogged and duck can then drown! However, this is very rare and if that was the problem with you duck I would think most of her feathers would look bad.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

 

[Amiga]

There is also a condition called wet feather. If I recall, sometimes it is associated with mites - but not always.

Here are a couple of ideas for dealing with it.

http://www.majesticwaterfowl.org/artwetfeather2.htm

http://fowlfacts.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=afflictiondiseaseff&action=display&thread=1302