Duck vitamin B deficiency causes curled toes and paralysis, low egg production - how to prevent and treat it?

Duck

   1. Symptoms. Vitamin B deficiency often occurs in ducklings aged 2 to 4 weeks. The main signs are: digestive dysfunction, slow growth, emaciation, anemia, weakness, ruffled feathers, sparse down, and in severe cases diarrhea. The characteristic symptom of this disease: the toes curl inward, the sick duck cannot stand, lies paralyzed and cannot get up, and the wings are spread out. Although sick ducks still have an appetite, most starve to death because they cannot stand and walk to feed, or are trampled to death by healthy ducks. In adult sick ducks, the main signs are a significant drop in the laying rate and the hatchability of breeding eggs; some ducklings hatched from such eggs are small, edematous, with curled toes, sparse down and slow yolk absorption.

    2. Causes. ① The feed is monotonous and its vitamin B content is insufficient. ② No multivitamin is added to the compound feed, or the multivitamin added is of poor quality. ③ The feed is stored improperly, especially when exposed to strong sunlight or in contact with alkaline substances, the vitamin B in the feed is destroyed. ④ Long-term feeding of high-fat, low-protein feed increases the duck's requirement for vitamin B. ⑤ Unsuitable environmental temperature greatly increases the duck's consumption of vitamin B.

    3. Diagnosis. Necropsy shows: atrophy of the gastric mucosa, thinning of the stomach wall, and a large amount of frothy contents in the intestines; the liver is enlarged and contains more fat.

    4. Prevention and treatment. Vitamin B is a component of many enzymes in the biological oxidation process of ducks, participates in many nutritional metabolic processes in the body, and has a great influence on the normal growth, development and reproductive function of ducks. In daily management, feed rich in vitamin B should be provided, more green feed can be given, and some multivitamins should be added to the compound feed. For affected flocks, riboflavin can be added to their diet at about 20 mg/kg for 1 week. For severely ill ducks, riboflavin can be given orally, 2 mg per duckling per day, and 5-6 mg for adult ducks. Generally, each kg of duckling feed should contain about 3.6 mg of riboflavin, growing duck feed 1.8 mg, and breeding duck feed 2.2 to 3.8 mg.