Dying gosling

[Carrosaur]

Carpet?

Here's a pic

 

[livininbrazil]

Carpet?

Here's a pic

Someone on here, can´t remember who, mentioned on one of threads, can´t remember which one, that there´s a type of carpet grass that doesn´t do geese any good. I can´t remember the name of it off-hand, but I´ll poke about and see if I can find it.

 

[Carrosaur]

Okay.

 

[livininbrazil]

Okay.

No joy yet. I´ll try again tomorrow.

 

[tillyita]

Kikuya, Buffel grass is bad too - for the same reason. It's high oxalate and causes calcium deficiencies. Which will give you very similar symptoms to those caused by niacin deficiency.

I don't feed grit to my geese (or other poultry) either - they dig holes and get it for themselves.

 

[livininbrazil]

Kikuya, Buffel grass is bad too - for the same reason. It's high oxalate and causes calcium deficiencies. Which will give you very similar symptoms to those caused by niacin deficiency.

I don't feed grit to my geese (or other poultry) either - they dig holes and get it for themselves.

Ah, it was your that posted it. thanks, Tillyita. In that case, there must be some grasses around similar to these that don´t give the geese all they need.
So could the grass in Carrosaur´s pic be similar, do you think? To me, it looks ok grass.
And, of course, it depends on the age of the babies as to whether they´re strong enough to push through the grass to get the grit. Having said that, here where I live there´s actually very little grit in the soil. I let them out into the yard where they can pick among the sand and stone that we put down there. The others get it from the stream.

 

[gaiamethod]

Well we discovered yesterday what was killing them. Only one survived and only because we weren't giving her the same food!!! Ducks/chooks/geese are fed moist wheat middlings (the stuff left over when wheat grain is milled and all the goodness is removed. The middlings is the goodness!) My Husband (Egyptian) went to our local 'seedsman' where we normally buy our animal feed and he bought, what he was told was, wheat middlings. When he brought it home and I mixed it as usual I thought it looked very coarse and not at all like middlings but he said it was just of poor quality (According to the seedsman). However, it turned out to be wood shavings cut to look like wheat!!

So you can imagine how it effected the poor birds. Ours were the only birds who died. We bought a few ducks and geese for my sister-in-law downstairs. They were from the same batch as ours and they were fine. There were only two things different from her bird care and ours. She kept her birds in their space between the two flats and only let them out into the front garden in the evening. Ours were let out the into back garden and the animal pen where their house is. So I thought that it was something to do with where they were. However, yesterday evening our ducks joined hers in the front garden and ate all her duck food. She was not impressed as she is not the most generous soul on the planet!! So my husband mixed some of our 'middlings' and brought it down to the front garden. When my Mother-in-law saw it she said we had been cheated! That it was from wood not wheat!!! You can trust nobody here in Luxor. Most of them will scam you if given the opportunity!!! It was a common scam she said and people are often fooled by it. So eating the wood would have backed up in their system, and it killed them all. Poor little buggers. Then she suggested feeding a handful of it to the cow every day!!! Was she nuts? It's going straight back to the seedsman!!!

So sadly the mystery is solved but at a lot of cost. It has to be one of the most stressful weeks this year. I spent all week worrying about them and seeing them die and there was nothing we could do about it. Vets just let birds die here unless they are a big business. But I will know in future what to avoid. My poor husband felt very guilty!!!

Livininbrazil...its a long story. But I'm married here and live with my husband and his family. We are saving to buy our own land so that we can build our own small-holding as I cannot bear how they look after animals here. Its heartbreaking!!! If you are interested have a look at my blog www.gaiamethod.wordpress.com
Do you blog your life in Brazil?

 

[livininbrazil]

Well we discovered yesterday what was killing them. Only one survived and only because we weren't giving her the same food!!! Ducks/chooks/geese are fed moist wheat middlings (the stuff left over when wheat grain is milled and all the goodness is removed. The middlings is the goodness!) My Husband (Egyptian) went to our local 'seedsman' where we normally buy our animal feed and he bought, what he was told was, wheat middlings. When he brought it home and I mixed it as usual I thought it looked very coarse and not at all like middlings but he said it was just of poor quality (According to the seedsman). However, it turned out to be wood shavings cut to look like wheat!!

So you can imagine how it effected the poor birds. Ours were the only birds who died. We bought a few ducks and geese for my sister-in-law downstairs. They were from the same batch as ours and they were fine. There were only two things different from her bird care and ours. She kept her birds in their space between the two flats and only let them out into the front garden in the evening. Ours were let out the into back garden and the animal pen where their house is. So I thought that it was something to do with where they were. However, yesterday evening our ducks joined hers in the front garden and ate all her duck food. She was not impressed as she is not the most generous soul on the planet!! So my husband mixed some of our 'middlings' and brought it down to the front garden. When my Mother-in-law saw it she said we had been cheated! That it was from wood not wheat!!! You can trust nobody here in Luxor. Most of them will scam you if given the opportunity!!! It was a common scam she said and people are often fooled by it. So eating the wood would have backed up in their system, and it killed them all. Poor little buggers. Then she suggested feeding a handful of it to the cow every day!!! Was she nuts? It's going straight back to the seedsman!!!

So sadly the mystery is solved but at a lot of cost. It has to be one of the most stressful weeks this year. I spent all week worrying about them and seeing them die and there was nothing we could do about it. Vets just let birds die here unless they are a big business. But I will know in future what to avoid. My poor husband felt very guilty!!!

Livininbrazil...its a long story. But I'm married here and live with my husband and his family. We are saving to buy our own land so that we can build our own small-holding as I cannot bear how they look after animals here. Its heartbreaking!!! If you are interested have a look at my blog www.gaiamethod.wordpress.com
Do you blog your life in Brazil?

Poor little babies! No wonder! How wicked! I can imagine your husband felt awful, knowing how people can be there. I doubt it´d hurt the cow, though. Your mum-in-law was probably thinking of not wasting it...but much better to take it back and make a big fuss! Poor little birds.

I started a blog a while ago about my geese, but I hardly have time to do anything. I love living here, we bought a plot of over 2 acres, which allows us to grow things, have geese, etc.
Animals don´t get the best of it here, either. I´ve just taken on our 7th dog. This one was chucked out on the road, then a car hit it, then another, apparently..so she´s here with us now. We´ve been here for 7 years, and aren´t as shocked about these things as we were at first. It´s part of life here. We do what we can, I try to educate people about animal care. Most of my neighbours are now getting their dogs neutered, are feeding their animals better, etc.It´s a slow process, and we can´t change very much.
I´ll have a nose at your blog. thanks.
Will you try with some more goslings? do shjow us pics if you get some more, won´t you? And glad you found out what it was. At least you know now. And grass and greens are the best foods for goslings and geese.

 

[EeyoreD]

So sadly the mystery is solved but at a lot of cost. It has to be one of the most stressful weeks this year. I spent all week worrying about them and seeing them die and there was nothing we could do about it. Vets just let birds die here unless they are a big business. But I will know in future what to avoid. My poor husband felt very guilty!!!

I know it's cold comfort and doesn't help much but at least you know, now, what the problem was. I've found that, even with all of the amazing information here and elsewhere, sometimes you just have to find things out for yourself and too often that's finding it out the hard way.

And your husband shouldn't feel too guilty. He trusted what the person who sold him the feed told him. Back to learning the hard way - now you know. I probably would have made the same mistake in that situation.

 

[Carrosaur]

So backing up the system is what killed your ducks and geese? That's how mine died. But not wood chips... Jeez!