Monday, May 28, 2012

Duck With a Disability

My Silver Appleyard duck, Agnes, has a wing that is twisted.   Better known as Angel Wing.

There are many suggested reasons for this wing twist issue, one being duck food that is too high in protein.  I don't feed a high protein grain.

I think it was caused from an injury. Probably from falling off of the ramp to the coop every day while her feathers were developing.

It took her longer to figure out how to go in and out of the coop, even with the added ramp addition.

She has never been as coordinated as the other duck, Ruthless.  And her technique for doing anything is to rush it and not look where she is going.

Here is a photo of her with her right wing that sticks out and gets caught on everything now.
Agnes is 2nd from the left, next to the rooster.



 This morning, with help from a friend we carefully wrapped the affected area of her wing and taped it.
The procedure took a good 10 minutes with vet wrap, scissors and tape.


She had it off in 30 seconds.



We did 3 more wraps and she still had them off in lightning speed.

I do not want to use duct tape.   it will be difficult to take off in 7 days.

Duck folks, Anyone have any other suggestions?



~


3 comments:

  1. I worked for awhile at the largest goose farm in north america for a bit. While we sorted just hatched goslings, we sometimes found what they called twisty wing. Looks like the same thing. They said genetic. Those babies always went to the feeder pens, not the breeder pens.

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  2. she'll be fine but you may not want to hatch her eggs. some of the babies will have it and some wont. i believe its hereditary as we've had some ducks with this "funny wing thing." eventually we got it out of our duck breeding lines.*shrugs*

    it might get worse but its not harmful to her. i also dont believe it has anything at all to do with their food.

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  3. Perhaps one of those hood thingies that my cat had to wear after she had surgery so she couldn't tear out the stitches. Poor duck and poor you.

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