PLEASE HELP ME I'M DESPERATE!! :-( Duckling with a slipped tendon

[GertiesMommy]

Hi there, I have a 4-5 week old Welsh Harlequin duckling who I've had since she was 2 weeks old. I recently took her to the vet and was told that she has a slipped tendon and that there's nothing that can be done and to just put her to sleep. She basically can't move her leg at the hock joint, where the leg is supposed to extend, its basically like its fused at the joint. But she can still move at the hip and move her toes and stuff. I have become so beyond attached and in love with this duck that putting her to sleep is way too much for me to handle. I have her brother and sister and she is A LOT smaller than them. She eats and drinking REALLY well, no issues there, I do hand feed her multiple times a day and that consists of chicken feed and supplemented with Brewers yeast. Her and her siblings get to swim 2x's a day for about 30-40 min. She swims really well, paddles with her bad leg and everything, she just can't move her leg at the joint. She seems to love swimming and seems to always be happy. 85% of the time she is wrapped up in a blanket in my arms, she's mostly with me through out the day and is very happy. She truly acts like a normal healthy happy duck besides she can't run around like her siblings. Even the vet had said she is very healthy. As she has gotten older she seems to use her bad leg more.



Gertie 2 weeks old





My biggest question is if anyone has raised a healthy happy duck that as this same issue? or do you think she can have a healthy happy life??

She would be a pet duck of course and I would assist her in a lot of her daily needs, I have no problem with that, she Is like my baby.

I just don't think she should be put to sleep if she's happy and health and will have me to care for her always.

But some one PLEASE give me some advice and their opinion, I'm truly desperate.

Thanks

 

[Amiga]

Ignore that vet's bad advice, dear.

(Had to post that quickly - now for more information)

Slipped tendon is serious. And if you are willing to work with her and understand she'll be higher maintenance, there is no reason to kill her.

Give me a little time to look up a few things and I'll be back. I mean, in a few minutes.

------Please take a look here under the FIX SLIPPED ACHILLES TENDON IN HOCK JOINT section

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

and really, there are several places on that page that I find helpful.

David Holderread, who wrote Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, wrote that

"People often ask if they should 'put down' a bird that has suffered major injuries. In my experience, birds appreciate the opportunity to recover. Ducks have an amazing ability to heal, even from injuries that appear to be catastrophic."

OldGuy43 rescued Lame Duck, renamed SunSinger. Their story is an inspiration. Let me see if I can find that.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/621212/got-our-first-duck
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/622281/a-new-question-about-our-lame-duck-updated-picture-added

 

[GertiesMommy]

Amiga, I can't thank you enough for responding :-(. You are so wonderful and gave me such wonderful info. Thank you so much again

 

[Amiga]

Please keep us posted. Have you read the Raising Ducklings sticky? Can you get or borrow a copy of Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks? There is so much to learn with ducklings!

May you all be blessed.

 

[Amiga]

I am thinking - see if you can find ways to get her to eat more often, and think about adding some Sav-A-Chick to her routine. Or perhaps a few drops of Poultry Nutri-Drench in her water. She needs water with food 24/7 at this age.

 

[casportpony]

I haven't seen slipped tendon is ducklings, but I have seen it in many peafowl (one of mine, ten from the feed store). Mine I was able to fix my putting it in a sling, but the ones I brought home from the feed store could not be fixed.

Here is an article that I found some interesting info in:
Quote:

My first year was almost my last year of raising peafowl. I didn’t want to deal with the pain and suffering, mine and theirs. I became determined to learn everything possible about slipped tendons. I called two universities and talked to professors in their poultry science departments. Both men told me too much protein in a diet could cause multiple problems in the health of any animal. It could cause deformities and could also affect the health of internal organs, particularly the kidneys. They also said they knew of no controlled studies in peafowl specifically to determine the proper amount of protein.

They both also mentioned the problem could be a nutritional lack of certain vitamins and minerals. As I continued on my search for answers I came across a publication that has been a life saver on numerous occasions; The Poultry Health Handbook by Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. In a chapter on nutritional and metabolic diseases Dr. Owen Keene discusses perosis or slipped tendon. He describes it as a deforming leg weakness with clinical signs of flattening and enlargement of the hocks which is followed by slippage and lateral rotation of the Achilles tendon out of the condyles of the hock. Dr. Owen goes on to say this disease is caused by a deficiency of the mineral manganese and that choline,niacin and biotin are also involved. He acknowledges that there is no treatment for chicks already affected but correcting the diet prevents new cases. He states that the rule of thumb on perosis morbidity is that when five or more of a thousand birds are affected the manganese level in the feed should be checked. Poultry require between 35 to50 ppm in their feed to prevent perosis. When dealing with perosis the level should be increased to 75 ppm. Manganese contents higher than 100 ppm will be wasteful. Armed with this information I made a few changes the next hatching season. I had been using a game bird feed manufactured at a local feed mill. When I compared the ingredient list to a more expensive name brand I noticed the name brand had a higher percentage of some vitamins and minerals including manganese. I decided to pay the extra dollar a bag and switched to the name brand. I then started looking for a vitamin mineral supplement that contained the needed ingredients. I did not want one of the products made for convalescing birds that contains electrolytes because these are usually high in glucose or some form of sugar, and I wanted a supplement that would be good for their health long term. I finally found a multiple vitamin with antioxidants and trace minerals called Polt Pak Vitamin Concentrate. It contains all of the supplements mentioned in Dr. Keene’s article to prevent perosis. The product is a water soluble powder that I purchase from Cutler’s Pheasant and Poultry Supply in Applegate MI. I start the chicks on it at birth and leave them on it until they are six to eight months old. The directions say a four oz. package does 128 gallons of drinking water. I use about ½ tsp. per gallon of water, or until the water turns the color of pale lemonade. Has this helped? I have gone from 25% of my chicks afflicted with perosis to less than 1%. Last year I raised 128 birds and lost only 1 chick to perosis. It was a four month old white hen that developed the problem on the day we caught her and moved her from a wire floored pen to the ground, and I think her problem was an injury that happened while moving her.
I am not a veterinarian, nor do I have a degree in nutrition or animal sciences. I am merely a fellow peafowl aficionado who loves the birds and loves raising them. I am sharing this information in the hopes that it may prevent someone from having to go through the heartache of destroying their birds due to a disease caused by a nutritional problem. Once again I am anxiously looking forward to a new breeding season with visions of fat healthy chicks more beautiful than their parents dancing in my mind.

CAROL COOK
COOK'S PEACOCK EMPORIUM


-Kathy

 

[GertiesMommy]

So now I've been noticing that her bad leg is kind of laying outward. Instead of the leg/foot pointing forward it points outward. Is there a way to correct that? I'm really afraid that she is passed the window of it being able to be fixed.

 

[casportpony]

So now I've been noticing that her bad leg is kind of laying outward. Instead of the leg/foot pointing forward it points outward. Is there a way to correct that? I'm really afraid that she is passed the window of it being able to be fixed.

So sorry... I have seen some that will keep rotating until they point backwards.

-Kathy

 

[localife]

I'm in a similar boat with a duckling who has issues with her legs (and is also much smaller than everyone else), but is otherwise doing great and is the best of the bunch in terms of personalty and demeanor. I've been keeping my apart from her siblings, who were accidentally stepping on her and making things worse by creating a wire panel between them -- they can still see and even sort of play through the wire, but she doesn't get squished, and she has her food and water right next to her with no one else to compete with. Mine also loves to swim (we named her Swimmy), and does great, so I recently posted a question about how long an fully feathered duck can stay on the water -- my thinking being that as she gets older, if I can create a sloped entry pond at ground level for her, maybe she can live a high quality life primarily on the water.

Anyway, my ducks were not supposed to be "pets" but this little one has won my heart and I want to do the best I can for her. I'm glad to hear from someone else who is working with a special needs duckling -- I was starting to feel a little alone with it, and questioning my sanity for trying. So thank you for reaching out, and please keep me posted about how things are going with her, and I will do the same. Maybe we can help each other create great lives for our special little ducks...

 

[Amiga]

Something that caretakers of special needs ducks can provide the world, other than the very important lesson of compassion, is their knowledge gained through working with the duck. Kim Link at Majestic has learned a great deal about ducks over the years she has helped them, and so has Duckyfromoz. OldGuy43 has set a good example for others to follow, and there are many, many more - I apologize for missing anyone I have met, doing this important work.

I realize that there are situations in which people don't have the resources. But in caring for special needs ducks, those folks can share what they learn, sometimes stumble upon treatments no one knew before, and even enable their ducks to become little ambassadors, taking part in educational programs for the public.