Hi, Not sure what it is, but I too have a goose with the same problem. It started out with a red rimmed eye, then the swelling started, it doent look quite as bad in the morning, so I think it must swell the more she itches it. My gooses eye was gooped shut yesterday. I was hoping it was a bee sting or biting fly bite. I will be watching this thred hoping someone will have a answer. Bette

Hi Beth and Bette,

I've never seen what you are describing, but I'm not sure your birds are afflicted by the same malady. I'll share what I know, but I make no guarentees... I'm no expert on goose illnesses.

Beth, your gander may have been stung by a wasp or bee, but it occurs to me that it may also have been bittem by a snake. You know the way geese poke their bills into everything that comes along. Even a water snake or the like can inflict a nasty bite that easily becomes infected and therefore swells. I'm assuming it is not easy to get hold of him to take a closer look... This second swelling could be the infection coming back, so please keep a good eye on him. Make sure he has lots of clean water deep enough to dip his head in. (I know you have a pond, but not sure how clean it is.)

Swollen tissure in the throat could make him wheeze. It could be parasites, but I don't know much about them. I have never wormed my geese, since their pasture is large for the numbers and has only been used for one year. We don't seem to have as much problem with internal parasites this far north.

Glad you got rid of that snapper!

Bette, to me it sounds as though your goose has an eye infection. I have Dave Holderread's The Book of Geese here and I'll give you the gist of what he has to say.

It sounds like what he calls "sticky eye." -- ophthalmia. It is a low grade infection caused by not having sufficient green foods (Vitamin A particularly) and/or not having clean water deep enough to submerge their heads completely. It is more common in goslings than adult geese. The thick yellowish discharge and reddened lid is typical.

Treatment is to feed lots of greens - dandelion greens, clover, grasses that are their natural food (in other words, turn her out on good pasture for most of her food) and to use a medicated eye ointment or drops such as Terramycin Eyedrops or Terramycin Ophthalmic Ointment. Provide clean drinking water to which one drop of Clorox per gallon of water has been added. Make sure the vessel is deep enough for the goose to submerge its whole head. Disinfect water containers regularly. Penicillin or terramycin tablets or capsules may speed recovery.

If the infection is not cleared, it may linger and cause permanent eye damage, he says... so I suggest you do what you can for her as soon as possible.

Good luck to you both and please post updates later on letting us know how it is going... so we can all learn from your experiences.

Thanks Maggie for your input. My goose does free range, shes always eating greens, and we have fresh deep water all the time, a pool and several buckets of water. I will look in town to buy either eyedrops or ointment for her. Its not swollen any more, but its like a watery eye, thats half closed. Thanks again for looking it up for me. Bette

Bette, sounds to me as though you are doing everything right. Maybe something got in her eye or maybe it WAS an insect bite on the lid. Hard to say. Anyway, I hope she has a speedy recovery. It's encouraging that it has gone from from goopy to watery... and that the swelling has gone down.

How many geese do you have and what breed are they? All of a sudden geese seem to have become popular... when I joined this forum three years ago, there seldom were posts about geese. Now there are lots!

Hi Beth, just wondered how your gander is doing... Please post an update soon!

Hi Maggie! Napoleon is doing better. His head looks normal again, although he still has a few tiny spots where he's missing some down...from scratching I assume.

I'm out of town for the next 5 days, hoping that DH doesn't call me with any other goose drama. We've spotted another snapper, so we put the trap back in the water before I left this afternoon.

It sounds as if I really don't need to worm them regularly? They're the only animals we have on our property, and they have the pond to themselves unless a group of Canada geese visits for a few days.

Glad to see all the goose postings here:) I love mine dearly, so I'm trying to learn all I can to keep them happy and healthy!

Hi, My gooses eye was a little better yesterday. She would go into the pool and dunk her head then rub it on her back, It will be so great when its normal again, I worry way to much about my animals. I have 2 young buff geese and 2 adult female African geese. They are so fun. My buffs are 3 months old, they always like to be by me. I had ordered them with Sebastopols, but none of the Sebatopols made it, they all died after the shipping, just my 2 buffs made it out of the 7 goslings that I ordered. That is why I'm so paranoid about my buffs eye.

We had decided to try geese last fall when a friend gave us the 2 goose eggs, we gave 1 egg to each of our bantam hens, we were amazed that they hatched. Being we enjoy them so much, we thought we would try more. I'm still wanting some Sebastopls though. Thank, Bette

Hi Friends,
This is getting off the topic a bit, pardon. Bette, you are the only other person we've noticed who mentioned having Africans. We have 2 pair, approaching 2 months. We're wondering how their temperaments might be in comparison to other breeds. Any noticeable character traits? (albeit you have no ganders). We vacillated mightily before selecting a breed - final choice based mainly on greatest ability to survive, a fair bit of predator pressure in these parts.
Just wondering.

Thanks

LF & RJ

Hi, My 2 Africans are very nice, they are loud sometimes, but its usually to warn my chickens of hawk danger. The people we got the eggs from have 2 pairs also, they all hang out together with no fighting at all. They arent mean at all, once in awhile the male will stick his neck out and hiss at a person, but theres never any chasing or pinching. They are so very elegant looking. We really enjoy ours. This spring our one female became broody, so we gave her 2 duck eggs. Both females helped take care of the ducks, even then they werent mean, they just stayed beween us and her babies. Even now her ducks, which are now full grown, will hang out with the geese, and not the other ducks, and if the young duck makes any kind of distress call, like when the male duck is after her, then the africans will spring into action, going after male duck. I think they are very enjoyable.
They must have a good memory, after they hatched out from the eggs, my bantam hens didnt want them and were very mean to the goslings, so at a few hours old we gave them to another broody hen, she loved them, she would have to stand so that both goslings could fit underneath her, she kept them with her for close to 3 months. Still today thr africans will come up to her when they see her, they touch her head with there bills, they will defend her if need be. They seem to still love there adoptive mama. Bette