I have 6 young geese, 4 months old approximately. One is now sick.
Symptoms are sluggishness, lethargy, tripping over a little too easily, etc, no appetite (she is still drinking though) her droppings are few and small, but one has been thinnish and greyish, and one black tarry.
She has an extremely light body weight, I couldn't believe it when I picked her up, I think her feathers and bone should weigh more!:-(
Sluggishness was first noticed yesterday, when she wasn't with the flock, but when approached she rejoined the flock and perked up, and we offered her some feed and she ate well and seemed Ok.
This morning however she presented herself at the gate, with the above symptoms.
As she is obviously in an emergency, I jumped to bring her in and worm her without delay, in case that is the trouble. I used an ivermectin injection, calculated by body weight.
I also tried to give her an iron tonic/molasses mix in a syringe, as that is what I would do for a goat like this for energy boost and anemia, but although I got 2.5 ml into her beak drop by drop I believe she spat almost all of it out.
After that I took a fecal sample and checked it under the microscope as I would for a goat, and found no eggs at all. It was only the tiniest sample so may not have had much anyway, and I don't even know if poultry worm eggs might be much smaller, and not detectable on 100x magnification, I don't know.
What could be wrong? What should I do?
We have her in a basket inside for company. Poor little girl is so pitiful, she climbs onto my lap and puts her head under my 'wing' ...
FYI, the environment is as follows:
They have the run of an orchard of approximately 1/4 acre. When they were young we were feeding them grain, however once they went out in the orchard they have been eating so much grass they're simply not hungry for it and we stopped as we were basically feeding sparrows. They have been self-sufficient on grass for about 6 weeks now.
The orchard is obviously clean, as these young geese have only been in there a couple of months, it is still knee deep or more in grass. However, they sleep in the same corner all the time, so even though they have a huge clean orchard the poop is piling up there. But they don't eat or stay there.
Their water is a bit tricky ... they will walk in, and swim, and poop in it, so fresh water becomes dirty again pretty fast. As such I tip the pool right out and start from scratch every few days.
There have never been geese on this land before, but there have been chickens and ducks at times, last time was 2 years ago.
Symptoms are sluggishness, lethargy, tripping over a little too easily, etc, no appetite (she is still drinking though) her droppings are few and small, but one has been thinnish and greyish, and one black tarry.
She has an extremely light body weight, I couldn't believe it when I picked her up, I think her feathers and bone should weigh more!:-(
Sluggishness was first noticed yesterday, when she wasn't with the flock, but when approached she rejoined the flock and perked up, and we offered her some feed and she ate well and seemed Ok.
This morning however she presented herself at the gate, with the above symptoms.
As she is obviously in an emergency, I jumped to bring her in and worm her without delay, in case that is the trouble. I used an ivermectin injection, calculated by body weight.
I also tried to give her an iron tonic/molasses mix in a syringe, as that is what I would do for a goat like this for energy boost and anemia, but although I got 2.5 ml into her beak drop by drop I believe she spat almost all of it out.
After that I took a fecal sample and checked it under the microscope as I would for a goat, and found no eggs at all. It was only the tiniest sample so may not have had much anyway, and I don't even know if poultry worm eggs might be much smaller, and not detectable on 100x magnification, I don't know.
What could be wrong? What should I do?
We have her in a basket inside for company. Poor little girl is so pitiful, she climbs onto my lap and puts her head under my 'wing' ...
FYI, the environment is as follows:
They have the run of an orchard of approximately 1/4 acre. When they were young we were feeding them grain, however once they went out in the orchard they have been eating so much grass they're simply not hungry for it and we stopped as we were basically feeding sparrows. They have been self-sufficient on grass for about 6 weeks now.
The orchard is obviously clean, as these young geese have only been in there a couple of months, it is still knee deep or more in grass. However, they sleep in the same corner all the time, so even though they have a huge clean orchard the poop is piling up there. But they don't eat or stay there.
Their water is a bit tricky ... they will walk in, and swim, and poop in it, so fresh water becomes dirty again pretty fast. As such I tip the pool right out and start from scratch every few days.
There have never been geese on this land before, but there have been chickens and ducks at times, last time was 2 years ago.
