Sudden unexplained death in duck. Grass green stain round vent

[Kimmyh51]

hi all

I just went to put some of my ducks indoors for the night and discovered one of them dead and I have no idea what happened.

Hoping someone is online now who can give me any thoughts on what it might be or what I can do in the morning to try and work out if it was anything contagious And how best to minimise any risk to the other ducks. Here are all the details I can think of that might be relevant:

She was fine last time I saw her a few hours ago and has not shown any symptoms of being ill. She is a female about 17 months old and the only signs I found on her when I was looking her over to try and figure out what happened, was grass green stains around the vent area.
It was staining on the feathers round the vent, slightly wet, not a lot of it, and not sticky or blocking the vent etc
I also noticed her skin seemed yellow with a slight greenish tinge. Maybe this is due to her being dead, but I havent noticed that color on other ducks which have died. It did make me think of the color of jaundice on a human, except a bit less yellow and slightly green. I am wondering if it might have been liver disease? Does liver diease take ducks that fast with no forwarning?

I have looked her over carefully and pretty confident that there are no physical injuries. There was also no noise or anything in the demeanour of the other ducks to indicate a predator had been about. She is of normal weight, has just molted and her feathers are all nice and clean and lush -no other indications of ill health. Nares were clean, eyes also, no discharges etc. feet and legs looked healthy and normal. Her vent did look kinda sunken in and very pasty white, but then this is possibly simply normal deterioration post mortem? I know she has died sometime within the past 4-4.5 hrs, as that's how long ago I was in the place i found her and her and all seemed normal then.

I found her on her side in a fairly typical position for a duck that has died, head slightly curled up, one leg in front of the other a little beak slightly open. A little bit of bedding material inside tip of beak.

None of the other ducks are showing any signs of ill health and I picked up one and checked her vent area, no green stains etc.

Just wondering if anyone might have any clues as to what might have killed her? My biggest concern (aside from being heartbroken at her unexpected death) is whether something contagious killed her and what risk the other ducks might be at. It's currently well after midnight here, and a bit difficult do do much else in terms of trying to figure out where and if I should quarantine any other ducks...

The only other thing that has chNged with this duck is she was recently, with 12 other females, put in a separate pen (right next door to my main enclosure) and I haven even putting this group in a house at night i order to artificially lengthen their night time hours to those of winter, with a view to putting them into gradually increasing daylight hours in a week or two to stimulate spring laying. The reSon she was one of the ducks selected is because she was (I thought ) in good health and had finished her summer molt. This group have been allowed out to free range with the rest of the flock most days since i put them in this separate house 6 days ago. Their new area is one I have used before to house drakes, and one all the ducks have had access to and often loafed about in when outside of their main enclosure.

They have been fed a pretty similar diet to the rest of the flock,the only difference being that in preparation for laying they are getting a high protein layer pellet ad lib, with greens and soaked or sprouted grains as treats, while the rest of the flock get the same pellets, but with a larger ratio of grains as they are not currently laying.

From my inspection of her after I found her she was not currently laying. There was no swelling around the belly etc, no inlaid egg. Crop seemed pretty empty. She was found next to their drinking water but not sure if that means anything, it is also closest entrance to their house from where she had been sitting.

On that note. Just over 24 hrs ago, I did add an extra 3 ducks to the group inside this newer house/run.
However she was not one of the ducks that was just added, and she has had access to all of the flock during most days this week anyway. There have been no indications of any fighting or pecking order type stuff. All the ducks in the group new each other well, and as mentioned there were no signs of physical injury, including feather loss. Her feathers all appear to be in good condition, no signs of being picked on or over mated or crappy feather condition due to stress or ill health.
This duck does come from a family line that has recently shown a susceptibility to leg problems, swollen hock, infections and swelling in the hock, (mother, and brother) and slipped tendons (sister and mother) - all still alive.

However she had not had any problems with this. She did have a really huge nasty bumblefoot infection about 6 weeks back, one massive one under her foot and another which went through to the top of the same foot, that's the only health issues she has had since hatching in spring 2016. Both bumblefoot lesions were removed surgically at the time they were discovered and treated/packed with local iodine and colloidal silver and the foot put in a protective bootie for a week or so after.
After treatment the bumblefoot lesions healed up quickly with no complications.

And i actually checked her feet a few days ago and there was no sign whatsoever that she had ever had bumble-foot, ie the skin was nice and smooth and flat and pink and healthy on both feet including where the bumblefoot lesions had been.

 

[Kimmyh51]

I also don't know what to do with the other ducks in the same enclosure. My first urge was to just move them all out of there in case thee was something in the enclosure that killed my duck. But the only other place to move them at this time of night is back to th ain enclosure, which obviously could put all the other ducks at risk if the duck died of something contagious.

 

[Kimmyh51]

I was also wondering, for anyone who has had larger numbers (ie above 50 -100) of poultry, if there is somewhere I can research expected deaths? I guess because any time I lose a bird I feel terribly guilty and that I should have been able to prevent it. Maybe if I can read some statistics on the normal mortality rate as a percent per month, year or whatever, then I can either, reassure myself that I am doing everything that i reasonably can and that when a duck dies it's not because I am a terrible person/duck carer.
Or I guess, if the average death rate from various causes is lower than mine, then at least I know that theres so so ething wrong and I can start taking steps to find out why, and the fix it ASAP.

I have only lost one other adult duck in my reasonably short duck owning career so far, a female of a similar age to a badly prolapsed vent which happened overnight and when I took her straight to the vet they basically refused to do anything except euthanise. I don't know what caused that one though, as her diet was 100% layer pellets which should have meant she was getting enough protein and calcium etc.

I have lost numerous hatching ducklings and young ducklings, though most of these were rescue ducklings and the causes of death were in most cases not preventable or foreseeable, Though I still feel as though if id done something better I could have saved each and every one.
But if anyones has any numbers on what the % of animals will die, from various causes, despite being given the best practicable housing, hygiene, feed and medical care I would like to know them.
I have a feeling I read somewhere those numbers differ from free range,to barn, to caged etc, so looking for the free range numbers.
I just hate it when any of my ducks dies, whether it's an adult, or a duckling that pipped and couldn't hatch. I take it really personally, spend a lot of time thinking about the what ifs and blaming myself and am devastated every time. Any time a duck in my care dies I feel that I should have known and should have done better., that it's my fault. While I know logically that its im possible to forsee everything and manage everything, i feel that I should be able to do that. Even though I know it's impossible to be 'perfect' because any mistakes or oversights may cost a life, I don't feel like it's ok or forgive able for me to make any.
One side of me wonders if this is the right career for me, if I am too sensitive, given the more animals i own, the more animals will statistically speaking, die. But the other side of me says that if I stop being heartbroken any, and every time I lose one of my ducks, then that is the time I should no longer have them in my care...

Does anyone have any statistics on deaths (%) that will normally occur despite good care and best practise?
And does anyone else like me struggle with each and every death, feel like they sometimes seem to have grief and loss heaped on grief and loss because of the animals or number of animals they care for, and blame themselves a lot?

Is it hard to keep or find perspective? Is what i am experiencing normal? Up until I got ducks, I had never had more than one or two pets (ie a cat and a dog) at the same time, and those pets lived long mostly healthy lives. So a pet dying was a one time occurence that might happen once in a decade.
Now I have had multiple ducklings dying this breeding season, and now my second adult duck has died. The first died about 18 mths ago). And with the cats and dogs that have died, it was pretty much always something that had either some warning, r was due to a definate cause ie hit by car. So many ducklings, and now, an adult ducks seem to be healthy one minute, dead the next, and half the time, you never find out why...

 

[Kimmyh51]

Anyone have any ideas what might have happened? No other ducks have become sick since this happened. She was actually not the duck I thought she was, but a new duck I only got maybe 2-3 weeks ago (who looked identical to a duck who I raised here for a duckling). I'm not sure of her age, As the people I got her from didn't know it, but not old.

I am wondering if maybe she could have had some internal infection, maybe she had started to lay (as my others u ka are just starting to come back into lay after moulting) and had a non shelled egg and the green I saw around her vent was infected material from that, rather than faeces.... However she definately had not paid any eggs in the 2-3 weeks I have had her here and was actually indoors at night to simulate a long winter night so I was not expecting her to start to lay...
There was definately no egg stuck inside her as I felt her abdomen (and have dealt with an egg bound duck before).

I wonder now if I should have attempted a necropsy, but she died at night on a warm evening, and I was concerned about it being some like really contagious so buried her first thing. Not like I had anywhere cold to store her overnight to keep her remains in useful condition for a necropsy. But I really wish I had some idea what happened to her.

Whatever it was took her from seemingly fine to dead in only 2 or 3 hrs.

Does anyone have any ideas? The only real clue on her body is this grass green vent staining.

 

[Kimmyh51]

Anyone?