I'm a little worried about my Cayuga girl Topaz as she won’t swim or preen at all.
I have two of the plastic paddling pools with clean water each day as well as two buckets for head dunking and a washing up bowl in case they fancy a mini wash but she wont use any of them. None of the three new girls swim in the pools but the other two have good washes and preening sessions with the buckets and the washing up bowl splashing about but this little one doesn't.
She is very, very skitty and I tried to encourage her by bringing her in into a shallow bath yesterday morning but she got hysterical and in the end I took her back outside as she was so stressed out and her big Appleyard sister Amber got very protective of her and now wont let me near her
I thought the girls might be reluctant to use the pools as the boys splash around in them (although the boys are gentle giants with them and have as of yet shown no interest in mating with them) so all day yesterday I brought the boys onto the patio and let the girls have the garden but still they showed no interest in the pools and she still wouldn’t wash or preen.
If you can help at all and give me any advice, as I really don’t want her suffering when it gets warmer - she needs to be splashing and playing like the others but just doesn’t.
Other than the water issue she is healthy - eats lots (I have them on a grain and pellet mix 30:70) and she does drink but not as much as the others do. They get greens and then also their favourite treat of tomatoes on a Sunday afternoon. The feed is next to water and they can either use the large feeder or a bowl that I put out for them that they seem to favour. I have given a cod liver oil supplement with some grain before bedtime and the water in the big water bottle has a supplement of acv for 5 days a month as they range with the chooks. There is also always grit etc available for them.
I have checked for nasties and there dont appear to be any and they were all wormed in January as well.
Any help to get her being a happy normal little duck would be greatly appreciated!