Is my gosling sick?

[Pippin35]

I purchased two roughly two week old Chinese goslings from a neighbor yesterday and generally they are very active and personable, and eat grass and starter well. One of them though will relatively often shake his head and water will fly out, sort of like what you’d expect when a drooling dog would shake its head. It’s slimy and about the texture of water that will sometimes come out of a chickens mouth when they drink too much, and occasionally it’s stained with what I imagine is food. Sometimes he will also make a tiny bit of a bubbling sound or a little hum when he breaths but this isn’t often. Is this an infection or defect of some kind or is it just because he is young and doesn’t know how to keep his food down?

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Do you have water deep enough for the goslings that they can wash out their beak and breathing holes?

 

[Pippin35]

Do you have water deep enough for the goslings that they can wash out their beak and breathing holes?

They do have it, but I’m not sure if he has been washing his face in it, it’s possible he grew up using a totally different watered and doesn’t know what he’s doing, so I’ll be sure to see if he’s washing right.

 

[Goosebaby]

It may be a respiratory infection if it doesn’t go away, you could add some apple cider vinegar to their water or give them som vetrx. If it doesn’t clear up they may need antibiotics.

 

[Isaac 0]

Sorry to hear about your gosling. How are they doing?

Could you post a video of the shaking-head motion? To post a video, you'll need to upload it to a video platform like Youtube or Vimeo and copy/paste the link here.

 

[Pippin35]

Thank you to everyone who has replied. Lucky for everyone it appears the little gander has stopped in any sort of unusual behavior. I have reason to believe some of the issues may have resulted from the fact that it was a considerably cool few days before we got him, and a few good baths and a readjustment of his heat lamp have seemingly stopped the sneezing and head shaking. If any of these issues resurface I will revisit all the advise I’ve received since the initial posting. Thank you all again.

 

[Goosebaby]

Wonderful to hear he’s doing well!

 

[Isaac 0]

Thanks for the update, glad to hear he's doing well.