Khaki Campbell lethargic and losing weight fast :(

[hammyanne]

Hi y'all! Looking for some duck help. I noticed my khaki campbell, Steve, limping at the start of this week, and she hadn't laid an egg in a few days. I suspected that she pulled something and that some rest would do the trick. The problem is that she has FOMO and overexerts herself to keep up with her two sisters who run all over the yard.

I put her in a dog crate in the run and set her up with some water, food, and oyster shell. I was alarmed at how light she felt—she couldn't be more than a pound or two. Suspecting a possible niacin deficiency, I also added some brewers yeast to everyone's feed.

She enthusiastically eats meal worms and peas, but otherwise seems uninterested in food and sleeps all day. She'll drink water. A few days ago I brought her inside for a health check and didn't find anything amiss on her legs or belly/vent. Today I noticed she had some lingering mucus hanging from her vent after she pooped.

I can't quite figure out how to make her feel better, and she's losing weight at an alarming rate. Any thoughts?

 

[hammyanne]

Following up with updates on this in case anyone finds this thread in the future:

Steve went downhill rather quickly over the course of a week. I kept her in the infirmary crate in the coop and monitored her closely. Eventually she stopped showing interest in meal worms

I prepared to tube feed her and moved her inside into my spare tub to more closely monitor her. She was so weak, and I figured it must be because she wasn’t eating. Then I read up on metal toxicity in ducks and immediately suspected that. She had all of the symptoms—lethargy, loss of control of her legs, loss of appetite. My poor girl had her first full blown seizure yesterday and that was one more confirmation that it could be metal toxicity. I left for work and came back home this afternoon to find she had passed while I was out.

My birds free-range on nearly 5 acres, and the property definitely has metal remnants scattered throughout from the previous owners who lived here for decades. I would have taken her to the vet, but the exotic animal vet is about an hour away and only sees ducks on specific days of the week. It was a tough lesson to learn to be hyper vigilant of metal pieces and to identify the symptoms of metal poisoning early.

Some of my favorite photos of Steve: