Chronically ill goose

[Carmel at Kovar]

I have a year a 15 month old Sebastopol goose, Isabel, who has spells of illness, beginning when she as a gosling. I’ve taken her to my avian vet several times, who sees the symptoms but never finds a reason for her illness, no sign of parasites etc, but will put her on an antibiotic to which Isabel will respond and improve. My vet finally sent me to an exotic animal and bird specialist for extensive blood work and other extensive labs that her clinic isn’t equipped to do. That specialist avian vet found nothing amiss in Isabel’s labs except for minimal elevation in her white blood count. He didn’t think it remarkable, but he put her on ten days worth of Augmentin to be cautious. All this has happened over the past year. Again Isabel improved with the antibiotic. This last time Isabel became lethargic and lost weight I treated her with egg yolk mixed with Poultry cell, using an eye dropper to administer it. Spendinf hundreds of dollars at the vet this past year hasn’t yielded a permanent solution so I decided to try home treatment. She improved after several days of this treatment, but now she has her symptoms again: weight loss, lethargy, lack of appetite, bill changing color, diarrhea. I’m out of ideas and I can’t find anything online that describes the recurring symptoms Isabel has. I have four other Sebbies, all of whom are very healthy, so the pproblem seems to be particular to Isabel. I wonder if anyone on this forum has any ideas what might be wrong and what I might do to permanently heal Isabel?

 

[Goosebaby]

I have a year a 15 month old Sebastopol goose, Isabel, who has spells of illness, beginning when she as a gosling. I’ve taken her to my avian vet several times, who sees the symptoms but never finds a reason for her illness, no sign of parasites etc, but will put her on an antibiotic to which Isabel will respond and improve. My vet finally sent me to an exotic animal and bird specialist for extensive blood work and other extensive labs that her clinic isn’t equipped to do. That specialist avian vet found nothing amiss in Isabel’s labs except for minimal elevation in her white blood count. He didn’t think it remarkable, but he put her on ten days worth of Augmentin to be cautious. All this has happened over the past year. Again Isabel improved with the antibiotic. This last time Isabel became lethargic and lost weight I treated her with egg yolk mixed with Poultry cell, using an eye dropper to administer it. Spendinf hundreds of dollars at the vet this past year hasn’t yielded a permanent solution so I decided to try home treatment. She improved after several days of this treatment, but now she has her symptoms again: weight loss, lethargy, lack of appetite, bill changing color, diarrhea. I’m out of ideas and I can’t find anything online that describes the recurring symptoms Isabel has. I have four other Sebbies, all of whom are very healthy, so the pproblem seems to be particular to Isabel. I wonder if anyone on this forum has any ideas what might be wrong and what I might do to permanently heal Isabel?

Did they check her amylase levels?

Are these all of her symptoms?


Most of her symptoms are very vague, a goose will act like that if anything at all is wrong so it’s not really surprising neither you or her vets have figured out the issue. Geese aren’t a breed that’s studied as well in veterinary medicine so often “important my experience” I’ll rely on chicken health knowledge, then parrot health which is more studied than with chickens, and then as a last resort human medical information. Not all of it’s applicable, but some of it is surprisingly.

Unfortunately parasites can have false negatives, “they’re only positive if the parasite in question happens to be shedding at the time of testing,” so parasites can’t be completely ruled out.

Higher white blood cell count than normal can be a sign of an immune issue, that she’s fighting an infection, a sign of cancer, or nothing at all. Birds often spike their white blood cell count with stressful situations, a drive to the vet and being handled by strangers is definitely stressful so it might just be that. If it’s extremely high that can be a sign of aspergillosis which is an insidiously sneaky disease.


However one thing you did mention may shine a light on
some possibilities for what could be wrong. The pale bill which is not normal.

I’ve had two geese who’ve gone pale. Parsnip and Darby.

Parsnip was my first. He had an unknown issue with his pancreas which resulted in issues possibly also with his liver. He was a mystery because it was hard for the vet to figure out what was wrong because all there was to go on was “lack of appetite, weight loss, lethargy, pale bill.” He would get better, then get sick again over and over.
His tests all came back normal except he had elevated amylase in his blood which indicated a pancreatic issue. He wasn’t digesting his food when he did finally eat and as a result he had issues absorbing nutrients.
Ultimately what was wrong was unknown because the only way to really tell was to open him up and look inside, which wasn’t a possibility.

Paranip was treated with meloxicam and long term with the small dog dosage of denamarin every day, it calms the liver as well as the pancreas.
I fed him small but frequent meals, and I added grapefruit juice, extra vitamin C, and lots of antioxidant rich foods to his diet and gradually he got better in a way. His bill color returned to normal.
Eventually he developed ascites as a result however, but he lived with the condition for another five years and it didn’t seem to impede his standard of living. He finally just past away a few weeks ago.


Darby is a different situation. He started going pale a year and a half ago, would get lethargic and go off his food, how I treated Parsnip doesn’t work on Darby. Darby then started getting flaking in his bean and odd growth on his tomia, the keratins serrations in his mouth.
In parrots dry pale skin and unusual bill/nail growth can be a symptom of a Vitamin A deficiency. I started treating him with vitamin A and he got better, then it returned. Darby seems to be chronically deficient in vitamin A so I add a liquid multivitamin to his water on a regular basis and if he looks like he’s worsening I give him straight vitamin A capsules.


For your goose I recommend starting her on a regimen of vitamin A with a liquid multivitamin in her water to see if she improves.
If she doesn’t she might have something more going on like with Parsnip.

The fact that she seemed to get better with antibiotics could mean she has an underlying infection, however if she has a vitamin deficiency that will weaken her immune system and she may have also had an infection as a result that the antibiotics were treating.


Another thing you could try is putting her on a round of parasite medications, without positive test results it’s any guess which one it is if there’s any at all so randomly treating with different medications until one works if at all can be costly. But if you consider doing so some options are:

Amprolium/ corid for coccidia. Don’t administer while treating with B vitamins, thiamine counteracts the effects of corid.

Fenbendazole “safeguard” for worms and giardia.

SMZ TMP will kill coccidia as well as a number of bacteria. It should not be given with potassium rich foods or potassium supplements.

Metronidazole for clostridium and giardia.

Tylosin/tylan for clostridium, mycoplasma, and a number of bacteria.

 

[Carmel at Kovar]

Gosh, thank you so much for the informative reply, Goosebaby! Isabel’s amylase was checked. Her examination and labs at the bird and exotic animal clinic were extensive and exhaustive. I actually have considered metronidazole this past couple of days. It looks like it’s prescription only, but I can call my avian vet and see if she will give me a prescription without seeing Isabel again. I’m also considering ivermectin, which is sold without prescription here in Texas, now. What do you think of Ivermectin as a possible treatment? It comes in pill form and her dose for her weight would be about 1/4 a pill one time, then another two weeks later (according to one veterinarian site we found that actually doses Ivermectin for birds). Not too stressful for her.

This week I started adding Poultry Cell and VetRX to the water I place in her coop at night. Is this multivitamin (the Poultry Cell) ok or do you recommend a different multivitamin?

At this point I think trial and error as you suggest is my best course of action. I don’t see anything else the vet can do, neither my regular vet nor the specialist. Hundreds of dollars later we have no permanent solution for her health issue, and the trips to the vet stress Isabel very much. Stress can just exacerbate her issue.

 

[Goosebaby]

Gosh, thank you so much for the informative reply, Goosebaby! Isabel’s amylase was checked. Her examination and labs at the bird and exotic animal clinic were extensive and exhaustive. I actually have considered metronidazole this past couple of days. It looks like it’s prescription only, but I can call my avian vet and see if she will give me a prescription without seeing Isabel again. I’m also considering ivermectin, which is sold without prescription here in Texas, now. What do you think of Ivermectin as a possible treatment? It comes in pill form and her dose for her weight would be about 1/4 a pill one time, then another two weeks later (according to one veterinarian site we found that actually doses Ivermectin for birds). Not too stressful for her.

This week I started adding Poultry Cell and VetRX to the water I place in her coop at night. Is this multivitamin (the Poultry Cell) ok or do you recommend a different multivitamin?

At this point I think trial and error as you suggest is my best course of action. I don’t see anything else the vet can do, neither my regular vet nor the specialist. Hundreds of dollars later we have no permanent solution for her health issue, and the trips to the vet stress Isabel very much. Stress can just exacerbate her issue.

Many of us have bad experiences using ivermectin, many worm species are becoming resistant to it, it does work on mites though.
Overall geese aren’t as prone to worms as chickens because their grazing habits differ so worms are a low likelihood unless there’s a history of worms or a high worm load on your property.
Poultry cell, poultry nutri-drench, and prairie pride vitamins and electrolytes are three good options.
Bronson vitamin A on Amazon is what I use to treat Darby for that particular issue.

Whatever the root cause of the pale bill, it takes a long time to lose color and it takes a long time to regain it, so what you want to look for is behavioral changes as those will appear first. If she starts perking up and eating again that’s a good sign you’ve figured out what the problem was.

 

[Carmel at Kovar]

Many of us have bad experiences using ivermectin, many worm species are becoming resistant to it, it does work on mites though.
Overall geese aren’t as prone to worms as chickens because their grazing habits differ so worms are a low likelihood unless there’s a history of worms or a high worm load on your property.
Poultry cell, poultry nutri-drench, and prairie pride vitamins and electrolytes are three good options.
Bronson vitamin A on Amazon is what I use to treat Darby for that particular issue.

Whatever the root cause of the pale bill, it takes a long time to lose color and it takes a long time to regain it, so what you want to look for is behavioral changes as those will appear first. If she starts perking up and eating again that’s a good sign you’ve figured out what the problem was.

Thank you so much for your help, and for the product recommendations!

 

[Goosebaby]

No problem!

I did think of another question, have you noticed any stress bars in her feathers over the past year? Stress bars can be hard to see if she’s a white feathered bird but you can feel them. Stress bars occur when something like extreme illness, poisoning, certain medications, but most often a nutritional deficiency is present at the time of molting.

 

[someonewholovesgeese]

I have a year a 15 month old Sebastopol goose, Isabel, who has spells of illness, beginning when she as a gosling. I’ve taken her to my avian vet several times, who sees the symptoms but never finds a reason for her illness, no sign of parasites etc, but will put her on an antibiotic to which Isabel will respond and improve. My vet finally sent me to an exotic animal and bird specialist for extensive blood work and other extensive labs that her clinic isn’t equipped to do. That specialist avian vet found nothing amiss in Isabel’s labs except for minimal elevation in her white blood count. He didn’t think it remarkable, but he put her on ten days worth of Augmentin to be cautious. All this has happened over the past year. Again Isabel improved with the antibiotic. This last time Isabel became lethargic and lost weight I treated her with egg yolk mixed with Poultry cell, using an eye dropper to administer it. Spendinf hundreds of dollars at the vet this past year hasn’t yielded a permanent solution so I decided to try home treatment. She improved after several days of this treatment, but now she has her symptoms again: weight loss, lethargy, lack of appetite, bill changing color, diarrhea. I’m out of ideas and I can’t find anything online that describes the recurring symptoms Isabel has. I have four other Sebbies, all of whom are very healthy, so the pproblem seems to be particular to Isabel. I wonder if anyone on this forum has any ideas what might be wrong and what I might do to permanently heal Isabel?

is she okay now?

 

[Carmel at Kovar]

is she okay now?

Yes! And the reason she is ok is a surprise! In February I bought a two week old Sebastopol gander and a three week old Sebastopol goose. Once these two were old enough to assimilate into the flock with the three older girls the gander started bonding with my sickly Isabel. As he grew larger than all the girls he took over alpha position from Clotilde, one of my original Sebastopols and the one that sometimes bullied Isabel. Basil, this gander, has organized the entire flock and Isabel is no longer having good days and bad days! All seem to be good days! She’s smaller than all the others, still, and although they free range during the day so she has a food source that way I suspect Clotilde was bullying Isabel in the coop at night and keeping her from the supplemental feed I give them at night. I wonder if she just didn’t get the nutrition she needed when she was younger, that my putting three different bowls of feed in the coop at night didn’t solve a problem with Clotilde keeping Isabel from food. Adding Basil to the flock, with his bonding with Isabel and also asserting himself as alpha seems to have solved Isabel’s health issues. Kind of an amazing turn of events! Thank you for asking about her!

 

[Carmel at Kovar]

No problem!

I did think of another question, have you noticed any stress bars in her feathers over the past year? Stress bars can be hard to see if she’s a white feathered bird but you can feel them. Stress bars occur when something like extreme illness, poisoning, certain medications, but most often a nutritional deficiency is present at the time of molting.

Oh, I never heard of stress bars before! This is good information! Thank you!

 

[Goosebaby]

Yes! And the reason she is ok is a surprise! In February I bought a two week old Sebastopol gander and a three week old Sebastopol goose. Once these two were old enough to assimilate into the flock with the three older girls the gander started bonding with my sickly Isabel. As he grew larger than all the girls he took over alpha position from Clotilde, one of my original Sebastopols and the one that sometimes bullied Isabel. Basil, this gander, has organized the entire flock and Isabel is no longer having good days and bad days! All seem to be good days! She’s smaller than all the others, still, and although they free range during the day so she has a food source that way I suspect Clotilde was bullying Isabel in the coop at night and keeping her from the supplemental feed I give them at night. I wonder if she just didn’t get the nutrition she needed when she was younger, that my putting three different bowls of feed in the coop at night didn’t solve a problem with Clotilde keeping Isabel from food. Adding Basil to the flock, with his bonding with Isabel and also asserting himself as alpha seems to have solved Isabel’s health issues. Kind of an amazing turn of events! Thank you for asking about her!

That’s wonderful news that she’s doing better!