Quarantine?

[superchemicalgirl]

I just picked up three somewhere between 4 and 8 week old goslings - brown chinese x pilgrim.

The only fowl I currently have is chickens... a lot of chickens.

Do I need to quarantine the geese from the chickens? Right now they're in the chicken brooder in the basement, a 4x4 box. They seem incredibly unhappy. They were really hot when I got them home and I stuck them in the bathtub for about 10 minutes. They drank and cooled off a bit, now they're no longer drooling.

I don't want to put them outside if they can potentially transfer disease to my chickens. The woman who had them did have chickens.

Thoughts?

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Well they can't stay inside... that much is clear (or brown). For something that's been too scared to eat for the past 6 hours it sure does continue to produce copious amounts of really stinky poo. The brooder just can't keep up with that.

We built them a really quick enclosure out of spare parts for them to stay outside the next few days. Any idea how long it'll take them before this is "home" and I can let them out?

 

[Goose and Fig]

If you have an area of lawn that you can put an low fence (even temporary) around with a bowl of crumbles and water- they will keep themselves busy all day. When mine are small like that I keep them in the garden and herd or carry them into a coop or predator-proof dog crate at night. Then you don't have to mow the grass either. Your best bet is to spend time with them- as much as possible. Talk to them, get down on the gound so you aren't so scary. Before you know it they'll be your biggest fans.

BTW- geese are not susceptible to the same kinds of diseases as chickens are.That's not saying they couldn't be carrying germs on thier bodies. I would think a short quarantine until they have a couple nice baths would be sufficient.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Thank you for your answer! We built a very quick 4x3x4 enclosure. When you say the geese are "small" I have to laugh. They're larger than my chickens already and weigh more than my cats do! This morning they were all in the makeshift lake... a large clear plastic tote my boyfriend got yesterday. It was cute. I'm still not a huge fan of them - cause I don't know what I'm doing.