An elderly Khaki Campbell should be weighed every two weeks, with a hands-on check once a week between weighings.
Why fortnightly weighing fits an elderly Khaki Campbell
An elderly Khaki Campbell changes on a fortnightly timescale, because laying itself moves her weight and condition. Two weeks apart, taken at the same hour and before her main feed, the readings settle into a line you can trust. The breed is also flighty compared with heavier ducks, and an elderly Campbell chased weekly learns to dread her keepers; a calm fortnightly catch preserves both her trust and her appetite. Judge her on the direction of three readings, not on one surprising morning.
The weekly check on an elderly Khaki Campbell
Once a week, hold the elderly Khaki Campbell quietly and start at her breast. The keel should feel covered, not like a blade, and the muscle either side of it tells you more about her true state than her feathers do. Feel her abdomen softly for anything hard, hot or swollen, which matters in a breed whose laying system has worked for years, and check the vent for cleanliness. Note how many eggs she laid that week if she still lays, because a laying record that stutters alongside weight loss paints a clearer picture than either fact alone.
Weighing an elderly Khaki Campbell the calm way
Set the scale where the elderly Khaki Campbell already spends time, such as inside her house, so the location itself is not alarming. Guide her small group in, lift her with both hands pinning her wings gently to her sides, and settle her into a towel-lined basket or low box on the scale. Wait until she stops shuffling, take the reading, and return her to her companions within the minute. If she panics at being lifted, weigh the empty basket, then the basket with her in it, and subtract; the arithmetic is slower but the bird stays calmer. Always weigh before the morning feed rather than after, and write the hour beside the figure, because a Campbell who has just filled her crop on pellets and slugs reads noticeably heavier than the same hen an hour earlier.
Reading an elderly Khaki Campbell's trend honestly
An elderly Khaki Campbell who lays less each season and holds a steady weight is usually showing ordinary aging in a laying breed, and your weekly keel check confirms whether steady weight still means good cover. Weight rising in a hen who has stopped laying points the other way, since a rich ration built for production now lands on a quieter bird, and the extra load finds her legs first. Either movement, sustained across two weighings with a matching keel change, earns a closer look rather than another fortnight of waiting.
When an elderly Khaki Campbell needs veterinary help
An elderly Khaki Campbell who strains as if to lay without producing an egg, walks with a wide penguin-like stance, or goes suddenly off her legs needs a veterinarian the same day, because laying breeds can get into difficulty around eggs that a home check cannot resolve. Stopped eating, open-bill breathing at rest, a swollen hot abdomen, or a bird found sitting fluffed and apart from the flock are likewise vet-first findings, not watch-and-weigh findings. When you go, take the record: her recent weights, her laying pattern, and when each changed. Storing that fortnightly weight and laying history in her KinsLe Pet Passport keeps an elderly Khaki Campbell's records gathered in one packet, so the story her numbers tell is available in full at the surgery and at home.