My goose lost a large portion of his beak. From tragedy to triumph!

[Goosebaby]

I was looking up beak prosthetics and I found something similar! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34039680

 

[matt_w]

The paranoid side of me wonders if it could be more along the lines of some sick person “I have weird neighbors and found one of my birds buckets filled with blood once” but more than likely I think you’re right in suspecting a bobcat.

Yeah definitely not a neighbor, my house isn't too accessible except by car and the nearest neighbor besides a 75 year old lady is half a mile away. The paranoid side of me wonders if one of my dogs picked a fight with him. I've done a lot of work to get the dogs and geese to get along, and they still hang out like nothing happened which is why I don't suspect them. You never know though, maybe someone picked a fight.



I suppose it's also possible they went down to the pond and got attacked by a raccoon or otter or something.

 

[Goosebaby]

If only they could tell us!

 

[DiYMama540]

Oh I love, love a happy ending!! This could have gone so much differently! Good for you for providing great care and seeing it through!! Lots of love from his goose buddies is VA!
Thanks for joining our flock!!

 

[oldwynooche]

Kudos to you for taking such good care of Lucifer.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Do you have snapping turtles in the water? A snapping could do that type of damage.

 

[matt_w]

Do you have snapping turtles in the water? A snapping could do that type of damage.

I do not, don't think there are many snapping turtles in my parts (pacific northwest). I used to have turtles in the pond, but an otter moved in and ate them all.

 

[Miss Lydia]

That’s good to know!

 

[Lisa Hornsby1314]

I'm a new member, but occasionally read this forum for advice. I've seen lots of questions about this in the research I've done so I figured I would post my experience here in the hopes that it helps someone else. This is going to be a semi-long post...

About 23 days ago, I came home and my free ranging geese came out to "greet" me in the only way they know how (honk and attempt to bite me). The biggest dominant male, whose name is Lucifer (for obvious reasons) was completely coated in blood and was missing about 60% of his upper beak. It was very gruesome. I was going to put him down, but I figured I would give him a chance. I don't have any pictures from that day, but I do have a video I shot 3 or so days after when I was less depressed about it. The video is here:

and here is a picture from it if you don't want to watch it:
View attachment 2049024

The initial hump as I stated in the video was that after a few days he obviously hadn't eaten anything and was starting to just sleep all day and not moving around much. I separated him into his own pen and started experimenting with what to feed him to get him over the hump. I started out with a deep bowl of dry food and mixed greens in his water. He didn't touch either of those, except for drinking and splashing around in the water.

The next thing I tried was chick starter mixed with water, and after 2 days he figured out he could eat that. This was very labor intensive, because the bowl I had wasn't very deep, so he could only eat the top inch or so out of it before more water/food had to be added. The starter would also separate from the water and settle on the bottom.

After some experimenting, what I found worked best was a milk jug filled with about 1 part normal goose pellets and 2-3 parts water. After letting it soak for an hour, it turned into something approaching oatmeal consistency. Once he figured out how to eat out of this, he was eating huge amounts of food to catch up to his previous calorie losses. Here is a video of the milk jug and him eating. Around this time he also started experimenting with trying to eat longer grass:

Over the following weeks, he slowly returned back to his old self. He was mating with his female, attacking me when I got home from work, chasing my dogs away, etc. I figured he was going to pull through, but the issue was the amount of labor each day to feed him. He kind of picked up the routine after a couple weeks though. Every morning I would crack the pen door open and he would push it open and come out. Then he would wait around for me to put his food down. I would just let him walk around outside the cage during the day, he stayed close by to the other geese. I couldn't leave his food in with the rest of the geese and ducks though, they would eat it all, especially the ducks. In the evening I would crack the cage door back open and he would walk in.

We also started to form a weird bond during this time, because he was outside all day. Anytime I was outside working, he would walk over and just kind of hang out next to me. He wasn't even trying to bite me (probably because the female geese weren't around). Maybe he was just hoping for more oatmeal mush to eat.

Anyways, at this point I started brainstorming ideas on how to make him a prosthetic beak. I know a lot of people say 3d printing, because they saw a few clickbait articles about it, but I don't have a 3D printer and I don't have time to learn how to use one. After a lot of thought, I had the idea to buy a prosthetic goose skull made out of hard resin, cut out the part he is missing, and glue/epoxy it to his existing beak. I would probably need to make a connecting piece that slides over the plastic beak and his current beak to tie them together. I would think you would want a somewhat significant gap between where the plastic and real beaks butt up against each other to prevent stuff getting stuck in there. Here is the skull I found:
View attachment 2049052

The issue was that over the healing period, a portion of his beak started raising up a bit on top, that would prevent a good way to attach the beak. It appears though as though this portion is slowly dying and may eventually fall off. Here is a profile shot of his beak currently:

View attachment 2049072

The good news is that yesterday when I let him out, he walked right by his bowl of mush and started eating longer grass. When I came home after work, he hadn't touched his food all day and was sleeping out in an area of tall grass/weeds. Then this morning he did the same thing, only started eating 2-3" long grass on my lawn. I guess he finally got sick of eating mush and figured it out. Here is a video of him doing it:

View attachment 2049062
He basically lays his head down completely flat against the ground and then rotates his neck around to get an angle on the grass. He was wolfing it down both mornings and doing a good job of it. I honestly think he won't even need a prosthetic and it may just cause him more problems than it fixes.

The only real downside now is that he needs fresh grazing area instead of pellets, but the good news is that I'm expanding their enclosure to 1/4th an acre of irrigated grass/weed land, so he should have a decent amount of grazing going forward without being let out every morning.

Anyways, just wanted to let everyone know that there is always hope when an animal gets injured. You just need to give them a chance to fight for it!

This happened to my goose yesterday. Did you give anything for pain?

 

[Shao]

Hey mate, the same thing happened to my ten months old goose today. My goose is in hospital now for this weekend and the vet has recommended prosthetic beak. Once he his bleeding is stopped I will take him back home. Many many thanks for your post which gives me some hope. I’m heartbroken as I thought I may lose him. Please let me know how is Lucifer goes now. Many thanks. Becky