Silma Jean

We've just lost two male geese (one was a white Chinese and the other a mutt). Both were just over a year old and both appeared to be fine the day before we discovered them dead near their sleeping area. We didn't have time to do much more than quickly look over the first one to make sure there was no sign of a predator attack (were trying to cover our open garage roof - had been fixing some leaks - before a rainstorm). I was able to open up the second goose when we discovered it a couple days later (my son remembered feeding it the night before and thinks it was fine earlier that day). It looked like the gall bladder may have burst (liver was tinged green near the gall bladder) and the blood hadn't coagulated yet even though the goose had been dead long enough to be cold. Hours later the blood was still uncoagulated and the body still hadn't become stiff. No predators had touched the other dead goose which we had tossed in a field in our haste to deal with the roof which we also found strange as something would have usually fed upon it the same night we put it there.

Has anyone ever had this happen to their animals? We are anxious to find out the cause as we have several more geese and a number of chickens and muscovy ducks in the same area.

Thank you!

We have a California doe that is about 10 months old and has been making a wheezing noise for about three months now (it developed a couple of weeks after we got her). She otherwise appears healthy - bright eyes, no nasal discharge, good appetite, plenty of energy - and the wheezing sometimes appears to disappear for a time only to reappear again later. Her cage is near that of three other rabbits (two other does and a buck) in our unheated basement, and we haven't heard any of the other rabbits making a similar sound despite being in cages right next to her for a couple of months now (they probably even drank from the same water bottle before we labeled the bottles). Has anyone else had a rabbit like this? Could she pose a threat to two new (pregnant) does we're planning to bring in? We're seriously considering culling her (she's failed to produce any litters yet and we learned her sisters took a while to produce young too), but don't know if we will get around to it before we bring in the two new does. I'd like to keep the new rabbits away from the others - at least a few yards distant - for a couple of weeks at least, but we have limited space in our basement and aren't ready to build an outdoor hutch yet (still working on building better protection for our ducks). Ideally I'd wait to get the two new does, but they're ready now, can't keep (owners will soon be going on vacation), and sound just like what we've been looking for - a proven doe and her daughter already bred to an unrelated buck. So far we've had -no- luck with any of the does we have - one appears to be too old (finally delivered two kits, only one alive) after months of trying, our wheezing doe (no young after two attempts), and one that just turned six months old and is to be bred for the first time this month.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?