Third eyelid wont retract

[Nickiduck]

Greetings from sweden!
Me and my wife has got a pair of geese of an old swedish rural breed called "ölandsgås".

Beginning a few weeks ago the female has had some problems with her third eyelids which wont retract properly.

She had tendencies like this in her left eye when we got her (around may this year) but it seemed to sort itself out after a while. We then thought it was because of her growing. But then a few weeks ago it started coming back, and this time on both eyes. And now it has started impairing her vision.

She doesnt seem to be in pain, and shes eating and drinking as per usual. But its clear its not normal nor very comfortable.

Weve had two different vets look at her and neither found the source. Neither of them found any damage to the cornea or anything like that. And neither any signs of problems with her sinuses(?) or other respiratory issues.

Now in the winter they are getting a mix of whole seeds of different cereals (wheat, barley, oats, rye). And added carrots and pumpkins and the like more or less daily.

Right now our main vet is on holiday leave so were just trying to do all we can in the meantime..

Any ideas? Anyone seen it before? Any tips on what to search for?

See attaches photos.

 

[Goosebaby]

There could still be some sort of infection or irritant causing this, sometimes the exact cause is unknown but that looks like some sort of inflammation.
If it isn’t bacterial a virus could be to blame, according to a few sites online neoplasia can also cause this.

There isn’t a lot of veterinary information available online about problems with the nictitating membrane so there’s a likelihood your vet just doesn’t know what to look for which isn’t their fault, vets and owners alike are at the mercy of available or known information and the growing amount of ai websites are making finding legitimate useful information difficult.

Here’s one site that lists a number of cases involving various problems with the nictitating membrane.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt...7e591932210fc3f7e8833aebdfabf9e1.pdf?t=piq9pd

If she were my goose I would put her on a round of Tylosin, doxycycline, or both to see if the issue responds and the inflammation subsides because I would guess it was mycoplasma which I suspect is in my flock, mycoplasma is hard to test for and can sometimes affect individual birds differently.

If it’s nothing to do with any kind of infection maybe some sort of localized nervous system disorder? Honestly I’m grasping at straws because this is a very unusual case you have.

 

[Nickiduck]

Thank you so much for all the info!

I might mention that our main vet is somewhat a bird-specialist whos been doin research on birds in dubai and whatnot. Which we are of course extremely thankful to have as a vet. But weve also noticed those problems you mention with the scarcity of information. At least here in Sweden animals are very much in three categories; pets, farm animals and wild. With three VERY different views on their worth and all.

Everyone spends thousands on their cats but if a chicken has a limp its off with the head. This mentality does of course impact research funding and everything else and this has been very obvious when weve discussed things with our vet. For instance we asked him if it was possible to do bloodtests of our ducks to see if they had any vitamin deficiencies or the like. He laughed and said that he would love to do that and that he might know of a lab that could, and that we were probably the only ones he knew who would want something like that

Anyway...

EDIT:
Managed to post before i was finished and noticed a few hours later...

Weve tried metacam with injections 2 times per day but it had no effect. During this treatment we also gave her an antibiotic (i think?) salve applied to the eyes (fucithalmic).

Anyway your answer confirms most of what our vet has said and with some added information, so nice to know we are on the somewhat right track. Our vet also said that its an odd case...

Thanks again and ill make sure to update here, so that the information will be available for others in the future , whatever the outcome.

 

[Goosebaby]

Thank you so much for all the info!

I might mention that our main vet is somewhat a bird-specialist whos been doin research on birds in dubai and whatnot. Which we are of course extremely thankful to have as a vet. But weve also noticed those problems you mention with the scarcity of information. At least here in Sweden animals are very much in three categories; pets, farm animals and wild. With three VERY different views on their worth and all.

Everyone spends thousands on their cats but if a chicken has a limp its off with the head. This mentality does of course impact research funding and everything else and this has been very obvious when weve discussed things with our vet. For instance we asked him if it was possible to do bloodtests of our ducks to see if they had any vitamin deficiencies or the like. He laughed and said that he would love to do that and that he might know of a lab that could, and that we were probably the only ones he knew who would want something like that

Anyway...

EDIT:
Managed to post before i was finished and noticed a few hours later...

Weve tried metacam with injections 2 times per day but it had no effect. During this treatment we also gave her an antibiotic (i think?) salve applied to the eyes (fucithalmic).

Anyway your answer confirms most of what our vet has said and with some added information, so nice to know we are on the somewhat right track. Our vet also said that its an odd case...

Thanks again and ill make sure to update here, so that the information will be available for others in the future , whatever the outcome.

It’s the same over here in the U.S, there are three main tiers of veterinary worth:
1 Horses and companion animals “cats & dogs” who are allocated the most funding for medical research.
2 Exotics. Parrots, zoo animals. They’re more valuable to keep alive in comparison to a farm animal.
3 Livestock. Livestock are disposable, but even here cattle are of higher value than poultry as cattle are harder to replace.

When I’ve found gaps in information for my geese I look for the closest equivalent which is chickens, there are a lot of chicken owners and they can be a wealth of knowledge when veterinary information is lacking.
When that isn’t helpful I look to Parrots, a lot of avian medical information comes from veterinarians who work with parrots.

Finally I’ve actually researched human medicine when I couldn’t find anything, which has been occasionally helpful.


Metcam/ meloxicam is a decent pain killer and it will help relive inflammation. The only issue with fucithalmic is the issue with any antibiotic when the exact cause is unknown, if there is a bacterial element it has to be sensitive to the antibiotic for the medication to work.

Has your vet performed a culture?