Quarantining a guard gosling (and misc questions)

[cyfarian]

@Goosebaby On some inhalation breaths she is making a slight noise. I don't know if it is normal goose noises or the start of wheezing. Do you have any recommendations? Any vitamins or such? Can geese drink magic water like chicks? Is it ok to put into her wading tub?

Also, there is a very slight amount of blood on the walls of the quarantine coop. Not in a drip pattern, but like it was thrown with velocity (think spin art). I picked her up but couldn't tell where it was coming from. But I am thinking that perhaps I clipped one of the wings wrong? I felt the wing stubs and no blood showed on my hands.

She otherwise seems fine. She was in the wading tub when I checked on her this morning.
George, the cockerel, seems completely fine so far. I hatched him. All of my birds I either hatched myself or got them as chicks from cackle hatchery AND he has been indoors with me except for a little supervised outdoor time, so I think the likelihood gave something to her is very low.

She bit me several times when holding her. She is very shy and scared, but I don't get the sense that she is mean.

EDIT: In the interim, I am going to add some ACV to her wading tub and massage her crop.

 

[Goosebaby]

Went on my first goose hunt tonight. I clipped about 1/3 of her flight feathers on 1 wing. Put up a small, temp fence around her quarantine coop while I was nearby working on a new coop. She seem fine until i was out of sight for about 10 minutes putting the chickens away. When I came back she had disappeared. Me and all of my neighbors spent about 40 minutes looking for her. Dark had fallen during the search. We finally found her in a lovely spot in the creek that had a waterfall in the farm of the neighbor 2 houses down.

I will definitely take more measures to prevent this in the future. I am still not sure how she got out but I will tighten things up.

Sneaky girl!

 

[Goosebaby]

@Goosebaby On some inhalation breaths she is making a slight noise. I don't know if it is normal goose noises or the start of wheezing. Do you have any recommendations? Any vitamins or such? Can geese drink magic water like chicks? Is it ok to put into her wading tub?

Also, there is a very slight amount of blood on the walls of the quarantine coop. Not in a drip pattern, but like it was thrown with velocity (think spin art). I picked her up but couldn't tell where it was coming from. But I am thinking that perhaps I clipped one of the wings wrong? I felt the wing stubs and no blood showed on my hands.

She otherwise seems fine. She was in the wading tub when I checked on her this morning.
George, the cockerel, seems completely fine so far. I hatched him. All of my birds I either hatched myself or got them as chicks from cackle hatchery AND he has been indoors with me except for a little supervised outdoor time, so I think the likelihood gave something to her is very low.

She bit me several times when holding her. She is very shy and scared, but I don't get the sense that she is mean.

EDIT: In the interim, I am going to add some ACV to her wading tub and massage her crop.

I’ve never heard of magic water so I can’t say it’s good for geese or not.

Could you get a recording of her breathing? I can’t say what it is at this point.

The blood could have come from her throat, it’s possible it may have come from the wing, but if you watch geese when they’re washing their face or when they have something strange in their mouth they fling water and anything in their mouth everywhere.
In future I don’t think you should bother clipping her wings, they fly a little but it isn’t much. I think I’ve seen mine only attempt it maybe once a year.

 

[cyfarian]

Last time I checked she wasn't making the noise...that or the noise of the wild birds were overpowering it. I will check her again this evening to see if I can hear it when things are quieter.

 

[cyfarian]

Also, magic water is a simple recipe that helps newly hatched or newly shipped chicks. It is made of warm water, garlic, ACV and honey.

 

[Goosebaby]

Also, magic water is a simple recipe that helps newly hatched or newly shipped chicks. It is made of warm water, garlic, ACV and honey.

Thanks for telling me!

Hopefully the noise was nothing.

 

[lilolilman]

1 if she appears healthy it’s unlikely she may have any diseases she could pass to the chickens, it depends on where she came from though and if disease was going around there, more likely her immune system needs to adapt to them because she is so young. I’m not sure how long quarantine should take but her being alone is detrimental to her physical and psychological health. She should at least be with one other bird while she is quarantined, also so she can develop antibodies from the flock. I suppose it doesn’t matter the gender, whoever happens to be calmest.

2 she should be eating something suited to waterfowl, for young goslings a flock raiser, her age she may need to start a flock finisher, then an all flock feed.

3 all domestic geese are decent flyers when they’re young and have developed their flight feathers, they can sometimes clear a fence. As they age and fill out their flight muscles don’t develop like wild geese and so they are unable to support their weight in flight for very long. Clipping the wings is unnecessary. As it is a goose or gander is unlikely to escape an enclosure by flying over it unless A they get carried away while playing or B they’re unhappy/lonely/feel unsafe in their enclosure.

4 geese are social birds that do best with their own kind. I have seen some geese happy with a chicken or duck friend, geese have big hearts and make friends well, but another goose is preferable because of biological reasons, if they’re best friend is a chicken or duck, they don’t have nearly as long a lifespan as a goose. If there are a lot of chickens I might be concerned about them not socializing with her like a goose would because she is different leaving her stressed and lonely.

Geese have different personalities, a flighty goose won’t bother protecting anything, if she’s bold she may try too. I say “try” because though they look large they are fragile vulnerable creatures, they protect themselves by bluffing their enemies, a big show to scare off small predators and that aren’t aware of their vulnerabilities. A gander can put up more of a fight, “the wing is worse than the bite” but even they are no match for even a fox that knows what it’s doing.
It’s a goose’s large appearance that makes them a deterrent, but not always.

Ganders get hormonal mid winter and through the spring, that means they are prone to attacking anything viewed as a threat or rival, which can include other birds like chickens, but not always, it’s depend on the individual. Female geese get along well together, but having only females won’t guarantee that they won’t bully the chickens, some girls can be feisty.

@ChickenWhisperer101