Meat ducks lacking vitamin A become blind and weak, and their growth stalls. How should this be prevented and treated?
During the process of raising meat ducks, meat ducks are prone to a metabolic disease with symptoms of visual and movement impairment, which is meat duck vitamin A deficiency.
Meat ducks
1. Symptoms:
Sick ducks discharge a milky exudate from the eyes, which sticks the upper and lower eyelids together, and the conjunctiva becomes cloudy and opaque. When the condition is severe, large white caseous material accumulates in the eyes of sick ducks, and the cornea even softens and perforates, causing blindness in the sick ducks. In general, meat ducks stop growing, are listless, become thin and weak, walk unsteadily, have ruffled feathers, lose the yellow color of the skin on the beak and lower legs, and have weak movement. If not treated in time, they will certainly die.
2. Prevention:
1. Usually pay attention to diversifying the feed; green feed or poultry multivitamins are indispensable.
2. According to the season and feed source conditions, in winter and spring carrots or carrot tops are best, followed by legume green leaves (such as alfalfa, clover, Chinese milk vetch, broad bean sprouts, etc.). In summer and autumn, wild aquatic plants such as wild rice stem grass are best, followed by green vegetables, pumpkin, etc.
3. Once sick ducks with vitamin A deficiency are found, feed rich in vitamin A should be added to their daily ration as soon as possible, such as increasing the proportion of yellow corn in the compound feed, and green feed must not be interrupted either. It should be noted that vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin with poor heat stability, and is easily oxidized during feed processing, preparation, and storage, so feed should be protected from rancidity, fermentation, and heat production.
3. Treatment:
1. Exogenous vitamin A can be rapidly absorbed in the body, so after artificial supplementation of exogenous vitamin A, the symptoms of sick ducks will disappear quickly.
2. Group treatment: Meat duck vitamin A deficiency can be treated by intramuscular injection of cod liver oil; young ducks weighing more than 250 grams are injected intramuscularly with 1 milliliter each time, and it can also be treated by adding 20 milliliters of cod liver oil per kilogram of concentrated feed.