Goose diapers

[Kim65]

Well, we made it through Diaper Day One.

Petey was a complete drama queen, off and on couldn't walk, and was very distressed that his butt feathers were in such a state, stuck with poop. Lila did much better.

When I ordered the growth harnesses, I had my genders turned around and have discovered that Lila (now Petey, sigh) was the boy, not the girl, and so I put the wrong harness on him. I think. Tomorrow I'm switching them.

I put them both in the tub to clean off those disgusting, messy hineys. Is there ANY way to put the diaper on better so their butt feathers don't get SO saturated? Too tight perhaps?

I changed the diapers every two hours, and a couple of times, there was a little more poop than it could hold. They are growing, thus pooping a lot more than they will, I may have to step it up there.

It was an exhausting day for them. They are naked in the playpen and have NOT stopped grooming and preening for the last hour. Especially their behinds. It's kind of sad.

But it was a day of contained poop. I guess I just gotta keep the goal in mind -- pet geese with free run of the house and no squit (or, very little)

 

[adrian]

Quote:
Hahah, it's harder to do that when you have a male goose who likes to bite strangers.

Which is the case for my friend. My geese are females, and they are quite sweet. They won't bite or charge, and like to be petted by anyone. It's an altogether different matter when the goose likes to bite and basically proves their assumptions correct.

 

[adrian]

Quote:
I diapered a male goose for about a year. He had chronic digestive issues due to a developmental fault. His gizzard was not formed correctly. His poop was in such large quantities and such a poor state that diaper changes were extremely messy and horrid. He got an infection in his vent that made him grow a huge, bleeding sore that bled at bath time and if he preened it. I had to apply polysporin to it and clean it with an antibiotic wash in order for it to get better. I had to order a custom made harness from someone else because it was so difficult to keep him diapered. He also got some terrible diaper rash no matter what I did.

My two geese are not so poopy, not nearly as bad as him.

My suggestions?

1. Check your food
They should be on a low protein diet with lots of bulk and fibre that will allow for proper digestion. Make sure they get good, live probiotics in their food, as well. Avoid watery treats.

2. Feed a lot of grass, whenever possible - it makes their poop very formed, solid enough to be picked up and tossed away.

And make sure you take care to buy the right sized diaper. Alan is very good about taking diapers back and making new, properly sized ones.

Make a schedule with your geese. It is like dealing with babies and toddlers. For instance, ours was like this:

Wake up. Give the boy a bath. Spray with aloe vera bird bath, diluted just lightly and allow himself to rinse off. This helped a lot with skin irritations and his poor feather quality (he was an unhealthy goose despite our many efforts to find out why). While he bathed, I'd wash his diaper harness and put it in the dryer. When he got out, it was time to preen and dry off, either in his pen or outside, depending on weather. When the harness was dried, he'd get into it and have his breakfast, usually consisting of a rich, leafy green salad and grass, sprinkled with flax oil for his poor skin and feather condition and overall health. (It helped immensely within a few weeks). He'd stay into the harness, getting changed intermittently, (usually every 3 or 4 hours?) and then, off to bed in his pen without the harness, and later in his life, he'd stay in it and sleep on the bed with me. Sometimes poop would fall out and he'd be very messy, but the bed could be cleaned... and he really did need to be with me.


A schedule is a necessity.

Good luck.

 

[Kim65]

Adrian, thank you so much for taking the time to type all that out.

I really DID get the harnesses backwards, so they are on the correct geese today lol.

Fortunately, they are not overly fond of the high protein (unmedicated) chick starter anyway. I'm cutting it with crushed oats, barley and corn and basically, they only have it at night in their playpen. The rest of the time, they have either grass or whatever leafy green I get at the store, kale, collard greens, spinach or butter lettuce. They were on dandelion greens but those are getting sparse this time of year. So there's been a slight change in feed over the last week.

I did notice MOST poops were a large green ball. I'm gonna see if Petey's diaper was just too small (thus, belonging to Lila) and if that keeps the poo away from his vent better.

I'll shoot Alan an email anyway.

The routine is key. I'm switching their bath to bedtime and take off the harnesses after that. Even though they don't like the harnesses I know it's important for them to wear thm and get used to them.

They have such a way of making you feel their pain

that it's not easy but nothing worth it IS easy

 

[adrian]

Oh, I hear you about them making you feel their pain. Whenever I had to change my old goose's diaper, he would gasp and whine and screech and you could hear his heart racing, and afterwards he'd run to me and hug his neck over my shoulder. I think the diet you are giving them sounds good, but I might cut out corn at some point. From what I've heard, it is mainly a treat for geese. It is what is used in factory farms and foie gras farms to maximize weight and size of the liver.

Everyone has different needs when it comes to a routine. Sometimes morning is better for a bath, sometimes evening. It does depend upon a number of factors.

Hopefully, your diapers will work better now that they are on the proper geese.

 

[aleciasayshii]

My ducks poops are ALWAYS messy and terrible
sometimes, the diapers dont work, theres always one accident a day...
he eats dog/cat food and will starve himself if i give him anything that is not that. he hates any kind of vegetables.
its horrible.

so i feed him in the mornings and bring him in a couple hours after he cleans the bowel.
that way his poop isn't rediculous.
when he does have accidents it manages to squirt BACKWARDS out of his diaper a good 2 feet.
I'm not really sure how to stop this, all I know is that it's miserable.

 

[adrian]

Wean him off of that junk. Ducks and geese should not be eating red meat, and for that matter, not the animal bi-products or high protein levels in cat or dog food. Over a length of time, this food will give him complications that lead to his death. It is almost assured that he will develop fatty liver disease if he continues on this diet.

Introduce him to greens. Start with mixed veggies - frozen and thawed. Most ducks love peas and beans. Start mixing peas into his dog / cat foods. Make a big deal about the peas. Hold them in your hands, pretend you're eating them, talk in an extremely excited voice... Just make a huge fuss. Peas are the first step. Once he starts to eat veggies along with the dog or cat food, buy some duck and goose food (or a low-protein chicken feed). Make sure it is lower than 16% protein. Dog and cat food will be like 30%. Mix dog/cat food and duck food 50/50. Make a fuss about the duck food. Keep offering veggies and offer others as well. Widen his horizons. Eventually taper him off so he's eating duck food and greens. Buy some little feeder fish from the pet store and put them in the bath with him. Ducks like fish.

 

[aleciasayshii]

oh yeah i get him fish, he loooooves them. its all business when he gets his fish.
he was eating vegetables, but he kept loosing weight. then i took him on a trip with me back to where i got him from for a week or so, but he refused to eat and lost even more weight and i got really concerned. he didnt touch anything for 3 or 4 days and he finally started touching the dogs food but eating very very little.
he would not even take intrest in his normal food either. which made me sad. but all my progress went down the drain.
where can i get this food?
i went to a feed mill and they gave me crushed up corn and i know corn isnt great for them either. but he didnt care for it anyways

 

[adrian]

Yes, corn is not good for them. A feed store, a generic one at that, should possess a chicken feed. Just a low-protein grower would be quite fine. Ducks do need higher protein than geese do, so 16-18% would be fine.

Vegetables are good for ducks but not solely. If he was losing weight, he did need more protein, but not that much. I was advised on how to feed a duck a natural diet some time ago, when I was raising my sick goose.

Every day, feed three meals. Include oats, healthy, low-protein, low-fat, fibre-rich breakfast cereals, and dry hot cereals. Include ocean-caught salmon, sardines, or other fish (not including tuna, never tuna, and never farmed fish). Also feed blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, but never strawberries. Include mixed vegetables - peas, carrots, beans, corn... And anything else you think is good. Frozen mixed vegetables are good. Some dark, leafy greens are also fantastic. Sprinkle with flax oil. It is absolutely fantastic for their health.

There are also other options.

Just remember the staples:

Protein.
(Beans, fresh fish, sometimes lean meats)
Fibre.
(Cereal grains, whole wheat, grass)
And all the rest.
(Berries, vegetables, flax seed for good fats)

I can probably get more detailed instructions.

 

[Kim65]

Something I noticed today (speaking of explosive poops)

My geese spent most of the day outside eating grass and weeds. Then I brought them in, put the diapers on, and gave them a bowl of collard greens, which they fed on like sharks.

Up until the collard greens started coming through, their poop was just chewed up digested grass, and "formed", more or less. Then came the explosive, brown watery, diaper defeating CRAPS.

I wonder if collard greens (and spinach, other human "salad" foods) are much richer and cause their digestive systems to "dump". No pun intended lol.

I know geese have different kinds of poo, one of which is simple digested grass (not smelly) and then this brown, stinking loose mess. This is their normal pattern. Maybe my timing was just off and I attributed normal smelly poo with the collard greens.

Anyway, they still HAAAAAAAAAAATE their diapers, try to bathe them "off" in the dog's water bowl, and now that I've removed them and got them out of the tub, they've been preening solid for an hour, especially their butt feathers.