Raising ducks is slightly different than raising other types of birds but not too different.
All birds will clean themselves but may do this differently, but, if a bird is not cleaning itself then you know that you have an issue on your hands.
This article looks into why your duck is not cleaning itself.
Table of Contents
Duck not cleaning itself:
Ducks love playing around in water bodies of all types. The birds will eventually start to get dirty as they play in these different water bodies, once dirty they will clean themselves.
However, this cleaning may not always happen
Sometimes the birds will not clean themselves for a while after getting dirty. Here is why your birds will do this:
The bird is sick:
When humans are sick we don’t usually feel like doing much of anything and ducks are the same. These birds usually take pride in keeping themselves clean but the opposite is true when the birds are sick.
Birds who are sick usually have no energy to clean themselves and this leaves their feathers looking raggedy and greasy.
Other signs that indicate that your bird is sick include sleeping excessively, discharge or wetness at the bird’s nares or mouth, discolored or runny poop, a lack of energy, dull feathers, and tail bobbing when breathing.
The sick bird may not be expressing all of these symptoms but you will definitely notice signs of distress when a bird is sick.
What to do:
A variety of illnesses will cause your bird to stop caring about its appearance and stop cleaning itself. The bird will only start showing signs of being ill far along its illness, so far along that the bird needs a vet.
Take the bird to the vet as soon as you can and have the bird examined. Once examined and diagnosed the vet will offer treatment to the bird.
Wet feather:
Another reason why your bird isn’t cleaning itself may simply be that the bird can’t clean itself. Ducks need to be in the water in order to have the desire to clean themselves.
Once your bird swims in a body of water, it will want to preen itself. The bird will preen itself inside and out of the water. Preening is when the bird runs its bill through its feathers.
This preening spreads the oil that keeps the bird’s feathers clean and waterproof, the oil is released by the preen gland which is at the base of the bird’s tail.
If the bird can’t swim in water then it will not preen itself thus not clean itself. This dirt will lead the bird to keep away from water and this will make things worse.
The preen gland will stop producing oil in this case. This phenomenon is called wet feather.
What to do:
If your bird has wet feather then you’d need to clean the bird yourself.
Fill a large tub with water and add some dawn soap to it. Once the eater is ready, get your bird into the tub using both hands to keep it from flapping.
Scrub the bird with a soft toothbrush and your hands till the bird is all clean. After scrubbing, rinse the bird off and take it out of the tub.
Once done, dry the bird off with a clean dry towel.
Once the bird is clean, and you’ve put out water bodies for the bird to use, then your bird will go back to swimming in the water and cleaning itself.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Duckling Foaming At The Mouth, Duck Has Mucus Coming Out Of Mouth, Yellow Mucus Coming From Ducks Mouth, Why Does My Duck Sound Congested?, Duck Dragging Bottom