My duck lost its leg last night...

[cdnley]

Hello,

I am new to this forum but not new to losing a duck. I lost 2 of my ducks last fall and the other 2 this spring to a fox. We managed to remove 6 of them and I thought our area was a little more secure. I ordered 5 ducks and 3 geese and recieved them May 28..they are approx 3 weeks old. I moved them outside to what I thought was a secure pen. There was a 1" gap around one corner of the pen. Well when I went outside this morning one of my baby ducks was dead and another, my Indian Runner duck Nermal, was laying still in the pen. I scooped him up and saw that his whole leg had been removed. He was not bleeding but I could tell he is in pain. I washed him with a betadine and water solution and put some polysporin on his wound area. He is responding to me and can hop around on one leg a little. He is eating and drinking a little too. I put him under a heat bulb to counter the shock shakes he was having. His feathers have been worn off on one side and his is pretty sad. I will continue the betadine washes and polysporin treatment and I can only hope his condition improves. Plese keep him in your thoughts that he can improve.
If he does improve I wonder what his options could be? Can he still swim? Will be be able to get around or hop on one leg? Can he be with his flock or will they reject him? Is there a device to help him?

Thanks

[CarolC]

Hi,

I have no experience with this whatsoever but I looked up "one legged duck" on Youtube and there are a lot of videos. It appears they can walk and swim and survive in the wild. I do not see any of them being rejected by the other ducks. That's good news!

[Someonewhocares]

When I was little we had a small mallard duck named Gertrude. We had found her at the lake. She was badly wrapped in fishing line and it took us forever to unwrap her. One of her legs had been wrapped with the line for so long that it had atrophied. She was such a feisty "little lady". She lived for years and used her atrophied leg as a stump that she would weight bear upon. None of our other ducks ever picked on her. She had no problems with swimming or doing anything else that our other ducks could do. It is amazing how well animals adapt to a disabling condition. Hope your little duck is doing better.

[cdnley]

Nermal is doing okay. I tried to keep him seperate for a while with the flock until he healed a bit. I put him in with the flock a week later but they picked the feathers off his back and he wasn't getting to the food bowl so I had to put him seperate again. I will keep him seperate until his feathers grow in and he is a bit bigger (he has always been the smallest of the bunch). He doesn't try to walk to much these days, in fact he walked a lot more just after his injury. Perhaps with time he will become better at walking but as it stands right now he is just laying a lot.

Some of the others are mean to him but he does have a few friends. The duck I hatched myself, Daisy, lays with him and they are very sweet to each other. I can only hope they become friends or partners as I want to have Nermal in with the rest of the flock for the fall time.