What killed my duck? (Graphic photo)

[goldgardener]

Hi all, unfortunately I found one of my young runner girls dead today and I am devastated. We saw her looking fine yesterday morning but had a family
emergency and didn't get home to put the ducks up for the night. I found her and noticed this wound/severe skin irritation under her wing.
I'm not sure if there was parasites or if there's already maggots on her. The skin definitely is damaged and previously she was fully feathered there. I checked her over and she had no other injuries, no blood anywhere on her, or other missing feathers, neck seemed unbroken, etc. So I don't know if something attacked her, if it was some kind of parasite/ skin infection, or if there was something else internally wrong and she just also had a skin issue. Any advice would help, I want to prevent this happening to any of my other ducks. Thank you

 

[casportpony]

So sorry for your loss. Is a necropsy an option for you?

 

[RandomDucks]

Animals are very good at hiding illness. I would think that there must have been some disease process going on to get maggots that quickly?

 

[Jenbirdee]

i’m so sorry ! carefully check over all your other ducks . hopefully this was a one time thing. i lost a couple ducks to mystery illnesses in the past. every sweet ducky loss is heartbreaking.