[deepblue]

Hello
 

Long term lurker but please I need some advice on how to worm my two embden geese.

Ducks & chickens-no problem... shut in pen for a week (normally they free range in the day), put flubenevet pellets in their feeders and job done.

The geese are proving more difficult! Normally they free range in the day and have 24hr access to whole wheat (fed from a bucket half filled with water). So far I have shut them in, removed all other food and left them with flubenevet pellets for 48hrs without them touching them before I have given in and let them back out. Then I bought flubenevet powder and added it to whole wheat with a little oil to help it stick. Again, 48hrs of goosey hunger strike before I relented and put them back onto normal wheat in water
....so how do I get them wormed!!

Any tips from those of you who are far more experienced than me would be much appreciated (although I am desperately hoping that you don't suggest syringing it down them as I really value my fingers!)

Thanks in advance for your help

[Possum]

I wonder if you can get them used to growers pellets before you give them the flubenvet version? Ours really like them and geese will try to eat most things if they find them in the field! Once they discover they like pellets as well as wheat, they might be happy with the medicated variety.


If that doesn't work, it possible to to syringe liquids down their throats so long as you have someone to help. When we had to do it, one of us lifted the goose onto a garden table or a conveniently located rabbit hutch. That person gently holds the body of the goose and they settle down quite quickly. The other person, holds the head and opens the beak. Slowly syringe the liquid into the corner of the mouth. It was swallowed quite readily. We always gave them a treat afterwards and the did not seems to traumatised by the procedure.

[hughesy]

Have you asked yourself why you need to worm them?

[deepblue]

Thank you Possum - I wasn't too worried about them being traumatised....it was me!! Especially as it would need to be done for 7 days!
What they really like is apples, so maybe I need to find a way of hiding the flubenevet powder in an apple

Hughesy - I have seen one of them 'yawning' a fair bit so I was thinking possibly they had picked up gapeworm, hence wanting to worm them.

[Steph Hen]

how about the spot on stuff licenced for pet birds? The active ingredient is ivermectin, and depending on where you look, it either only treats external mites, or is absorbed through the skin and kills all parasites.
It is absorbed through cattle/mammal skin. used in africa to treat human parasites, so difficult to think traces in meat/eggs after a few weeks could be very harmful to people.

see if link works, if not just google ivermectin bird wormer drops.
https://www.viovet.co.uk/Beaphar_Bird_Parasite_Treatments/c9778/

[Possum]

The apples are a good idea. And there are plenty of them around at the moment. Perhaps you could put some in the liquidiser and then mix the powder in with the puree.

[Dans]

To worm ours we penned them using hurdles and gave the pellets twice a day, they gobbled them up as the grass was limited.

When you say shut them in do you mean in a pen or in their house? Do they normally eat in the house?

Dans

[Womble]

Our vet happily prescribed Panacur Small Animal worming liquid for our geese. There was a bit of debate about the correct dosage, and I can't remember the figure we finally agreed. However, we dosed them using a syringe down the beak once a day for three days, which as far as I know, worked fine.

[F.CUTHBERT]

Used to worm pheasants with Panacur by adding it to there drinking water. Can't do that with the ducks as they spill more than they drink but it might work with geese