Goose with mysterious injured leg

[seberrios]

Hi there! I have a female Pilgrim Goose who has been limping for over a week and I am stumped!

The first day I noticed it, I inspected the foot that was giving her trouble and found a very small (about the size of a pin head) cut on the webbing between two toes. I cleaned and treated it and continued to do so for several days. But the limping and raising her foot when standing didn't improve at all, even though the little wound looked like it was healing nicely. At about the week mark I inspected all the way up her leg to see if it was something else...and I couldn't find any injuries. She didn't make any sounds of discomfort or pain when I fingered each toe and bone. I looked at dozens of pictures of different stages of bumblefoot, and I couldn't find any signs of that either.

I'm now at a total loss for what to do–other than wait and see what happens, which feels scary and wrong. I care about her a lot and want to make sure I'm being as proactive as possible to help her heal and recover.

Anyone ever seen this or have any advice?

 

[Goosebaby]

Leg problems, they can be completely benign but can take awhile to heal, or they can be a symptom of a more serious issue developing.

It could just be a sprain, if that’s the case she’ll need to rest it as much as possible for a few weeks while it heals, same goes if it’s something like a fracture or injured muscle. If it’s these three possibilities you’re in luck, broken bones and strained muscles are easier to heal than organs.

You could take her to a vet and get an X-ray, that will tell you if she has a mass pushing on her nerve or if she might have an injury higher up in her pelvis.

Another possibility is some sort of bacterial issue. Mycoplasma can cause one or both hocks to become inflamed and they’ll go off their legs depending on how severe the swelling is.
Another bacterial possibility is clostridium, mild cases of botulism can creep up slowly and cause progressive neurological problems, starting with the feet. As it worsens you’ll notice she’ll start walking like she’s drunk.

There other issues that can cause neurological issues, which can also manifest first with leg issues, inflammation in the spine from infection, vitamin deficiencies, and toxins.

You can start her on vitamins, something like rooster booster poultry cell or poultry nutri-drench has a lot of vitamins. If she isn’t vitamin deficient they’ll give her a boost which might help her recover faster at least.

I hate to worsen your fears, but leg issues is something I’m familiar with and there’s really no way to say for sure what it is without a lot of diagnostic testing, which is costly and doesnt necesarily guarantee you’ll get answers.

The best advice I can give is to keep her comfortable, try not to let her strain herself, up her vitamin intake, and watch her closely. If she worsens the best thing would be to get her seen by a vet, if that isn’t an option maybe put her on a round of antibiotics, amoxicillin, cipro, and baytril are good all around antibiotics, things like clostridium may be more sensitive to metronidazole, but determining if there’s a bacterial infection and what that bacteria is sensitive to is where vet lab work is needed unfortunatly, so without that you might end up in the often unrewarding cycle of treating based on guesswork.

It could just be a sprain, leg injuries are more of a when, not an if with birds, if you have birds you’ll see a few achy legs eventually.

 

[seberrios]

Thank you so much @Goosebaby ! I’ve isolated her and her mate to a smaller pen to (hopefully) force her to rest and stop walking around so much on it. Also giving her rooster booster. I’ll keep an eye on her and just look for any changes.

 

[Goosebaby]

Thank you so much @Goosebaby ! I’ve isolated her and her mate to a smaller pen to (hopefully) force her to rest and stop walking around so much on it. Also giving her rooster booster. I’ll keep an eye on her and just look for any changes.

By the way have you checked her abdomen? If you feel around it should feel fairly gooey, if there’s a hard lump in there it could be an egg that got stuck or something else going on.

 

[seberrios]

I just did! All feels normal. After a couple of days of rest, it looks like miiiight be starting to put her weight on it again while standing, but is still limping exactly the same. Fingers crossed that just a little more rest and electrolytes does the trick.