ALL my geese are sick and 4 died so far :(

[marathonmultiplesmom]

I am sooo happy to say they are responding well to the new treatment.

I wasn't sure if my head honcho gander, Napoleon was going to survive the night. He was so weak yesterday that he was stumbling all over and could hardly stand... couldn't hold his wings up; they were droopy. I went out several times to bring warm medicated water and food. I found him "lost" and confused in the middle of the night, covered in snow. So I carried him back to the "goose garage" to be with the others. And in the morning after just a day of the medicated water and being separated from the suspicious pond he is up and walking, holding his wings up, not 100% but MUCH better. And the others look better, too. Like I said, not all the way. I need to continue this but I am not worried about them dropping dead. I feel semi-relieved. After further research I decided I will worm them but I will wait a couple months. There is a wormer called flubenvet available in the UK that I read a lot of good things about with geese. They CAN get worms.

I don't know exactly what is making them sick but I am seriously suspecting a bad bacteria in the pond. Its covered until we will be able to drain, clean and refill it.

 

[spish]

you havent mention what the sick poultrys poo looks like (or you did and i missed it)
could it possibly be cocci? they dont have to have blood in the poo straight away for it to be cocci, it can also just be brown/runny.
have you had a lot of rain recently? many wild birds in the area? any new birds introduced?

 

[feathersandfluff]

Yes the pond is where mine were getting the bad water from. We installed two fountains to throw the water up in the air and also drained a suspicious large overflow that the geese were drinking from and fenced it off so the geese couldn't get to the bad water.
We haven't had any of them get ill after we did that. It is good to know that yours seem ok now.

 

[marathonmultiplesmom]

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peach, few variety of apples, pear, plum, asian pear, cherry, plus 2 grapevines.

 

[marathonmultiplesmom]

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I was thinking about something dead and rotting... but wouldn't it float?
There was a moldy bag of food several months ago sometime in the summer but it was chicken feed. I give the geese layer pellets on occasion but idk. They couldn't have gotten much and it was months ago so I don't think thats it.
The anti-biotic worked though so must have been a bacteria?

 

[The goose girl]

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Not necessarily. Decomposing creates gasses, but if those can emerge, the body doesn't float.

A friend of mine found a dead end very decomposing - eww! - rabbit in the bottom of his pond when he emptied it.