Blind goose with fowl cholera

[gaiamethod]

I live in Egypt and keep geese and ducks, chickens and turkeys. All of our chickens were wiped out in a matter of days with fowl cholera. It is nigh on impossible to find the right treatments for birds here as the vet pharmacy is a teacher, and not trained in veterinary care. Nothing about keeping birds here is normal!! Twice a year we get fowl cholera here. Our hens are usually the worse hit but this year our two-month old muscovy babies were hit and our geese. They were all raised together from birth. Only one of the geese has survived but she is still ill after a week. We are putting antibiotics for cholera and coccidiosis in their water and they are recovering nicely. However, the goose (12 weeks) cannot see a thing!!! We have to hand feed her because she cannot find her food and water. Is blindness a result of getting cholera or could it be the feed? Vitamin deficiency? Again, this is Egypt and we do not have the feeds for birds unless you are a commercial grower, so we are limited to one or two types of feed. Any help, would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your poultry problems with fowl cholera. Sulfa medication is what most use to treat it. A vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness in chickens, but there are many other causes such as eye infections, cataracts, and past infection with avian encephalomyelitis. Foul cholera is infectious, can be spread by ticks, insects, rats, and other animals.

 

[gaiamethod]

Thanks for your reply. What is Sulfa? In this region, Luxor, when the temps suddenly change, moving into the heat of summer in March/April and then, October, moving into the cool of winter, we get cholera! Everyone around us is losing birds hand over fist! But I have never lost all the birds before. It is an ongoing struggle to get the Egyptians in our area to change how they raise birds, so keeping ours healthy becomes a nightmare. I won't even go into or I'll end up ranting. The cholera we have been treating and the birds are nearly better, but the goose is blind. She is young, only just got her adult feathers, and she had no infections or anything else that we could see. It was only when she became ill that we realized that she was blind. She wasn't blind before that! The other two geese that we rescued, at three months old, are fine!!! I might try some vitiamin treatment and see if that improves anything!!! Thanks for you answer.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sulfa drugs are antibiotics, which I believe come from sulfonamides (I'm not a chemist.) They were some of the first known antibiotics, and treat many different diseases. For foul cholera in the US, sulfadimethoxine and sulfadimethazine are used to treat. It is always a problem keeping one's animals healthy if other neighbors have sick ones. Clean water and good quality feed are important, as well as promoting good health with parasite control is about all you can do besides educating people to more modern ways.

 

[gaiamethod]

Thank you so much for your help. I'll check out and see what they cal them here. The blind goose and the ducks have recovered but not without after effects. obviously the goose is blind and the female muscovy's neck is now crook! NOW, two of my turkey's have whatever the goose had. They have all been treated for cholera and coccidiosis, as I said, so I wonder if it is a vitamin deficiency, as you said. Can anti-biotics cause difficiencies?