Finding out how my goose died

[Darlingoo]

Hi all,
unfortunately, Last night my female African goose passed away.
I'm just kinda hoping I can get some closure on the whole thing if I could at least understand why she died so maybe I can do something in the future.

She looked a bit off Monday night, figured I'd see how she was in the morning.
In the morning she laid a massive egg with a soft shelled egg ontop of the normal egg. It probably was the white of the soft shell egg but the normal egg was covered in a thick clear mucus that was quite chunky. She then began to poop out what I can only discribe looked like scrambled egg bits.
She didn't want to walk much and only wanted to stay in her shed. She didn't eat but did drink and preened herself a small amount.
Anyway I rang the vet the only appointment they had with there avian vet was on Thursday. Anyway I had work so fast forward to about 5pm she still didn't want to move much. I picked her up, which she never lets me do. Drooled a lot and pooped on me which though watery was normal colour and nothing massively alarming. I gave her a warm bath and checked her vent nothing out of ordinary.
I put her back with her mate. She declined really rapidly after that, about 8 she was just sat there. By 10 she was stood up sruggling to keep balance, wings both on the floor struggling to keep them up and unable to Lift head up.
I brought her in tried to get her to eat or drink. Gave her another warm bath in which half way through she spasmed out flopped around and passed away when I managed to restrain her.

Sorry for the essay just I didn't want to leave any information out about the event. Please let me know if there's any handy bits of info that I missed out on. My minds still in a bit of shock as I'd grown fond of her.
I'm thinking it was some sort of poisoning but to what I have no idea and no other bird is showing symptoms. That's why I was stuck on her being possibly egg bound.

Thank you for reading.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Keep the carcass refrigerated and get it to your state poultry lab for necropsy.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahln/downloads/all_nahln_lab_list.pdf
Otherwise it is just a guess.
Call them and they may send you a FedEx shipping label.

 

[Darlingoo]

I didn't even think of that, cheers. I'll look up to see if there's an equivalent for the uk.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

There are. Virtually every country has government animal diagnostic labs. Many countries also have universities with veterinary schools. I always send unexplained deaths or even very sick birds to our state vet school. (Mizzou)
Here are some options.
http://www.idexx.co.uk/livestock-poultry/livestock-poultry.html
http://www.nwlabs.co.uk/

and some vet schools

1. University of Edinburgh
2. University of Glasgow
3. University of Liverpool
4. University of Cambridge
5. University of Nottingham
6. University of Surrey
7. Royal Veterinary College
8. University of Bristol
9. University of Central Lancashire

or perhaps the ministry of agriculture can send you somewhere local

 

[Iain Utah]

I am sorry for your loss. I've lost a few females to reproductive issues over the years. It is not uncommon, especially with rarer breeds.

It is likely that she formed a shell-less egg, the egg membrane broke inside of her, and that basically poisoned the goose. Scary to watch happen. I lost a white african goose that way, after three years of fighting soft shell laying. Sometimes it is a result of low calcium, and you can increase calcium to fix. Sometimes, you can get lucky by purposefully interrupting laying cycle long enough to break soft-shell laying. Sometimes, it is just bad luck and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it.

 

[Darlingoo]

Thank you chickencanoe for all that info really brilliant. Will see what the lab brings back.

And Iain thanks you for your responce, that actually has put my mind as ease a lot as this makes the most sense of the situation. Honestly I didn't realise this could of been such an issue though I think the shell less egg was her first one and might of been broken inside her for a while. Trouble is I didn't see any signs till last minute. A friend has suggested getting some liquid calcium and I've made sure to put more grit/oyster shell stations in there pen.

Thank you both very much again for your responses