Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Ducks & Botulism

Well, a couple of our newer ducks were quite ill yesterday with what we believe was a type of botulism that affects ducks.

However, after separating them into a cage and giving them fresh food and water for a day, they seem to have recovered fine. With all the rain we've had these past two months, there is a lot of rotting vegetation and places that would harbor that bacteria. We cleaned out their "pool" thoroughly and cleaned all water dishes. Hopefully that will be the last of that problem for this year.

Seems like I always have a lot I want to post here, but find no time to get around to posting it.

There was quite a windstorm at the farm over the weekend, while I was gone to Missouri. It took out a very large tree limb from one of the front yard elms, and several smaller limbs. We spent most of yesterday evening with the chain saw cleaning that up. The goats thought it was a bonus, because every branch that still had leaves on it went into their pen, which they loved. Cut the biggest portion into firewood chunks.

The wind also played havoc with the neighbors alfalfa field, which is directly across the road from us out the front door. They had just cut and windrowed the field when the storm came up. It blew all their newly cut alfalfa south across the other road and into a wheat stubble field. Steven and I hope to glean some of that, since I know they won't bother with picking it up from there. We will probably go pick it up by hand tonight, because it is supposed to rain again tomorrow. The rest of the alfalfa, that was left in the original field, they windrowwed again several times to try to get it back together, then baled it yesterday and hauled it off.

2 comments:

Jordanne Dervaes said...

Glad the duckies are better. I always have a fear of Botulism when it comes to my ducks. God willing, I won't experience what you went through. Ducks are very healthy birds so when they show signs of sickness, it's very upsetting because usually it's serious. Oh well... glad to hear things may be okay after all.

Tracy said...

Jordanne, I don't think you would have to worry too much about botulism with your ducks, since you have more control over what they feed on. Ours are totally free-ranging all over the farm, so they can get into stuff that may not be good for them.
Also, most botulism for most ducks is not fatal if they aren't in a pond or somewhere where they can "drown" when hit with the paralysis. (I don't think yours have a pool that deep?) I guess severe cases could cause paralysis so bad they would die from being unable to breathe, etc; but usually you would see signs long before that, and can isolate and treat them with fresh water and food.