Frostbite?

[amity3520]

Our Am. Buff gander has given us quite a bit of worry this winter, and it's our first winter with the geese so as usual this could be me freaking out over nothing, or it could be what I think it is. We noticed part of his foot had turned whitish, one of his outer toes and a bit of the webbing inbetween the outer toe and the middle one. It's definitely been cold in New England the past few weeks, but when we noticed the color change it was only in the 30s or so during the day, probably colder at night. During the day they have access to the snowy yard which he usually avoids, and they always have access to the barn stall, padded with lots of shavings and hay. They're also locked in their stall at night. It's been three or so days now and I went out to look at his foot today and it's just... different now. The spot looks darker than the rest of his foot, not the telltale black of frostbite, but it's almost a little purplish, with a white spot in the middle. There are no signs of blood or a cut or anything, so I'm really thinking mild frostbite is the only thing it could be.

My question is, how can this be treated? We have bag balm and neosporin here, but that's about it, and the family isn't too willing to spend a good deal on his foot, though under $50 would be acceptable. The vet's is closed right now, but if they're open tomorrow I'll call in and see if he has any advice on the foot, but I thought I'd see what you guys thought, since there are people on here who know much more about geese than our vet. Will the dead skin have to be cut away, if it is indeed frostbite, and how can I know for sure? Does anyone have pictures? I have found one on google of a goose's foot with frostbite, with two very black toes which are also puffed up, but that's not how ours looks at all, his foot isn't black and it's not puffed up, though I can't tell if he has feeling in his last toe or not.


Any any any advice would be incredibly welcome! Thank you all!

 

[DuckLady]

Can you post a pic?

 

[carolynb]

I have an 11 week old chick that may have frostbite on her feet. We are keeping her inside right now in a dog crate and hoping she recovers. Here are some pics:

Hope this helps! Do you think you could find the link for the goose foot you saw?

ETA: It started out just being red/purple...then swelled up and her toe turned black.

 

[amity3520]

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.majesticwaterfowl.org/images/frostbite.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.majesticwaterfowl.org/mmissue26.htm&usg=__O_szTR4f4BnDkPH22zYTQgJAdjE=&h=186&w=252&sz=18&hl=en&start=15&sig2=DdVpOaUE1X0Ow9nRKDkMtQ&um=1&tbnid=Fr9lWSCHGW9LDM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgoose%2Bfrostbite%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=wes8S-TGDYTj8Qa4s9yMBw

that's the link for the goose frostbite picture I saw, looks very severe though.


Well, we took him to the vet's today and she wasn't entirely sure of it, I think, but she scrubbed at the skin and saw pink healthy tissue underneath, so she was hesitant to cut anything away. She gave us Baytril for a week to see if that has any effect on it. Of course, I'm paranoid about administering the Baytril, I don't know if it's like with chickens, if you can easily get it in the lungs or not, but he seemed okay a few minutes after giving it to him. Of course he's just trying to swim in his water bucket, as usual, since the pond is frozen, poor goose!


Another weird thing is that he only weighs about 13.2 pounds, for an 8 month old Am. Buff gander is this normal? It seems pretty light to me, but he's still bigger in size than our Toulouse female, but I want to weigh her soon just to see if they're about the same. I'm wondering since it's winter if this weight loss could just be due to the loss of grazing, even though we've been supplementing greens as best we can, and they always have crumbles.


Poor goose! This must be so stressful for him, it's stressful for me! I'll try to get a picture of the foot up tomorrow!