Duck injury care

[Lucygoosemama]

I have an 8 month old pekin duck (well I have others too) who voluntarily “surfboards” for my Sebastopol gander, and although he doesn’t successfully mate her, he stands on her and does his thing holding her neck feathers. This happens almost daily with various ducks so not really a problem as it’s not really mating and they voluntarily basically ask him to by positioning for him. In any case, I’m telling you all this because I think it led to my problem, but not sure, I noticed this one pekin losing her balance falling forward a couple days ago, so I brought her inside in a large kennel with food and fresh water with electrolytes to observe her. She didn’t appear injured at this time the following day (yesterday) when assessing her I noticed a blackish (later realized it was maroon) looking spot near her ear where the feathers were wet from dunking her head and after further checking, noticed it’s an actual wound and it looked terrible but was completely hidden by feathers initially until she head dunked. I flushed the area with a light Saline solution watered down with a little Betadine, then applied triple anabiotic. She’s eating and drinking and laid an egg this morning but is still tipsy at times and will have her legs stretched out backwards laying on her chest when she loses her balance. I’ve continued to clean the wound again today and reapplied ointment, am I doing enough for her or is there more I should do and when should I be worried she needs to see a vet? The vets near me are being very careful because of the avian flu going around they don’t like to see birds unless it’s an emergency, so I’m trying to take care of her myself but I wanna make sure I’m doing an adequate job.

The first photo is from yesterday and was after my first initial cleaning after discovering the wound the second picture of her in the kennel is from today after it being cleaned again.

Again I am not positive that my goose caused the wound when biting to steady himself, it’s just a theory because it’s the same area he grabs a hold of and he’s very unsteady when he tries to mate them and they’re in a pool of water which makes it worse for balance.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[sourland]

If they were mine, I would separate the gander from the ducks. In addition to possible injury there is also the possibility that he might drown them while attempting to mate. That wound will heal readily given that the duck is protected from the gander.

 

[Lucygoosemama]

If they were mine, I would separate the gander from the ducks. In addition to possible injury there is also the possibility that he might drown them while attempting to mate. That wound will heal readily given that the duck is protected from the gander.

Good news is I already found a nice home to adopt the gander out to because I didn’t realize having a goose to protect my flock also meant protecting them “from me” meaning I can’t hold and snuggle or even pet them anymore unless he’s not around. I do have them separated and his new owners are coming Monday to take him to a homestead with only one female goose aside from their other non winged farm animals. He and my ducks will be much happier this way!