Goosebaby
Free Ranging
Also posted in Geese
My 9 month old gander began limping on March 2, I didn’t think much of it because he got into a squabble with one of the other boys and I figured he just needed resting.
His limp progressed, his left hock was slightly inflamed after a few days and I noticed he was losing weight so I thought he further sprained it and restricted him to his bedtime pen with a cushy dog bed and food/water within reach and began administering vitamins, (B mix & rooster booster poultry cell.) I also gave him wormer. “Ivermectin.”
March 11 his limp progressed into uncoordinated wobbling with curling his left foot under, knuckle walking. I made him an appointment, the soonest I could get him seen was the 16th. He began refusing to eat.
I checked dozens of other vets to try to get someone to see him sooner, either they flat refused to see a goose, their vet(s) wouldn’t be in till next month(?) they’re not taking new patients (UC Davis) or they’d be happy to hold him for $400 a day but they don’t do blood tests “wtf?”
On the 16th his vet took one look at his neurological flopping around and assumed like I did that he had some sort of hardware disease. She drew blood for metal toxicity testing, sent me home with tube feeding formula and CaEDTA to be administered every 12 hours.
His tests came back negative.
I guess the lesson there is don’t assume anything no matter how obvious it looks.
After coming home he developed a blue tongue “blueberry blue” arrhythmia, and labored breathing, I administered oxygen which lowered and normalized his heart rate and resolved the breathing difficulties. The arrhythmia and breathing problems have reacured several times since but have been resolved with oxygen. His tipongue has turned more of a pink color, during his breathing troubles it gets more purple, but otherwise it hasn’t been to such an extreme as that first night.
At this point we think the arythmia/breathing problems/anemia are due to his anorexic state but without more tests that isn’t absolute.
At this point he’s too weak to travel back to the vet for more testing, it’s a two and a half hour drive on a good day.
On the 21st he began taking Cipro (Baytril) 1/2 of 250 Mg every 12 hours.
Yesterday was the soonest this should have began taking effect, as of yet it’s hard to say wether he’s better or worse.
If he worsens or there’s no change his vet is going to prescribe him an anti-fungal.
Currently the last few days his mother (2 year old goose) has been withdrawn and quiet, but is otherwise still eating, her walk is normal but strangly slow. In hindsight I noticed this withdrawn quiet behavior from a week and a half prior to her son developing the limp, I had just scooted her off her nest and removed her eggs so I figured she was having the usual broody related issues but I noticed she was eating a lot of grit so I administered wormer “ivermectin” to her and corid to her’s and everybody else’s water anyway because it’s that time of year.
I’ve ordered Albendazole just to cover all my bases, if it doesn’t work then I’ll assume this is a viral or fungal issue and attempt to treat them.
In the meantime any thoughts or suggestions of what this could be would be a huge help.
Also what dosage of Albendazole to give to geese?
