Practical Comprehensive Prevention and Treatment Techniques for Goose Cholera Explained

Goose cholera is on the rise in China, and many farmers neglect prevention and treatment, resulting in serious losses. The disease is an acute septicemic infectious disease caused by Pasteurella multocida; it occurs mostly in winter and spring, affects adult geese more than young geese, and when prevention and treatment are not timely the mortality rate is 80%-95% or more, with devastating losses being not uncommon. Damp, dark and crowded goose houses, sudden climate changes, vitamin deficiency, malnutrition, and internal and external parasitic infections can all trigger the disease.

I. Epidemiology and Symptoms

This disease is a common infectious disease of chickens, ducks, geese, poultry and birds. Infected poultry, recovered carrier birds, and contaminated environments, equipment, feed, drinking water, ponds and transport vehicles are all sources of infection for this disease. Geese swimming in contaminated water can also cause outbreaks and epidemics of the disease. In addition, flies, ticks, mites and others can also transmit the disease. The disease is mainly transmitted through the pharynx, upper respiratory tract mucosa, digestive tract and damaged skin. The disease can occur in all four seasons, but occurs most frequently and severely from September of the current year to March of the following year.

The incubation period of natural infection is mostly 3-9 days, and the clinical symptoms occur in three types: peracute, acute and chronic. Peracute type: mostly seen in the early stage of an epidemic, with no prior symptoms; the bird often suddenly falls to the ground or suddenly drops while mating, flutters its wings a few times and then dies; sometimes there is nothing abnormal when fed in the evening, but the bird is found dead in the house the next morning; obese and high-producing geese are mostly affected by the peracute type. Acute type: the most common; sick geese are depressed, separate from the flock, squat on the ground or tuck their heads under their wings, do not eat, move slowly when driven, are unwilling to enter water, have diarrhea, and pass white or yellow-green watery droppings; sometimes the droppings contain blood clots or blood streaks; body temperature reaches as high as 42-43°C, breathing is difficult, and death occurs within 2-3 days. Chronic type: transformed from the acute type; sick geese have persistent diarrhea, become emaciated, and in the later stage often have swelling and suppuration of one joint, are in poor spirits, eat little or only drink water, and limp when driven; some develop respiratory inflammation, with serous or mucous discharge flowing from the nasal cavity, labored breathing, anemia, and pale caruncles; the course of disease can last more than 1 month, and finally the birds have to be culled.

In the peracute type, the liver of the carcass is enlarged to varying degrees and congested; there are a small number of scattered hemorrhagic points on the coronary groove and epicardium, with no obvious lesions in the digestive tract. In the acute type, sick geese show pinpoint hemorrhages on serous membranes and mucous membranes, pericardial effusion, pinpoint hemorrhages on the pericardium, pinpoint hemorrhages in the left and right ventricles and coronary groove, enlarged, congested and brittle liver, millet-sized brown or grayish-white necrotic foci under the liver capsule, congestion and hemorrhage of the tracheal and bronchial mucosa; lung congestion with pinpoint hemorrhages under the capsule; and inflammation of the small intestinal mucosa. The chronic type mostly shows catarrhal inflammatory lesions of varying degrees in the small intestine and ileum, shedding of the small intestinal mucosa, submucosal edema, thickened intestinal wall, and inflammatory swelling and suppuration of the foot joints.

II. Comprehensive Prevention and Treatment

1. Prevention: (1) Keep the goose house dry, ventilated and airy at all times, and replace the litter every 3-5 days with litter dried in the sun. (2) Do good work in cold protection and cooling when the climate changes suddenly. (3) Feed supply must not change abruptly, and vitamins and minerals should meet the needs of growth and development. (4) Drinking fountains, feed troughs and the like should be rinsed daily with 2% sodium hydroxide solution and then washed with clean water; the goose house, ground and equipment should often be cleaned and disinfected with 5% lime water or 1% bleaching powder solution. (5) Sick geese found should be isolated and treated promptly, and the goose house and other areas should be well disinfected; carcasses of sick geese should be buried deeply in a timely manner and strictly disinfected. (6) Use 1010 avian cholera attenuated vaccine, dilute it with water according to the instructions, then provide it to geese for drinking at multiple points, or add an appropriate amount of corn flour and the like to this drinking water to make a thin porridge and let the geese finish it within 2 hours; the immune period can reach 8 months. (7) The VC strain avian cholera attenuated freeze-dried vaccine, after being diluted 100-fold with aluminum hydroxide gel water, is injected subcutaneously into the neck of each goose at 0.5-1 ml, repeated once after two weeks, and the immune period can reach 3 months. (8) For emergency prevention and treatment, inject anti-avian-cholera hyperimmune serum subcutaneously at 3-5 ml, repeated once every other day, which has preventive and early treatment effects.

2. Treatment: (1) 10% sulfadiazine intramuscular injection, 0.5-1 ml per kg, twice a day, for 2-3 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 95%. (2) Sulfadimethylpyrimidine powder, mixed into feed at 0.5%-1% and fed, for 5-7 consecutive days, with remarkable results. (3) Diaveridine mixed into feed at 0.3%-0.5% and fed, for 5-7 consecutive days. (4) Penicillin 50,000-100,000 units intramuscular injection, 2-3 times a day, for 3-4 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 85%. (5) Streptomycin 100,000-200,000 units intramuscular injection, 2-3 times a day, for 3-4 consecutive days. (6) Oxytetracycline powder mixed into feed at 0.05%-0.1% and fed, or 0.15-0.3 g per young goose per day, for 2-3 consecutive days; or intramuscular injection of oxytetracycline at 25 mg per kg, twice a day, for 2-3 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 96%. (7) Wild chrysanthemum 60 g, gypsum 15 g, add 250 ml of water and boil, and after cooling give each goose 2 tablespoons per dose by drenching, 3 times a day, for 2-3 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 90%. If 50% of this medicinal liquid is given as water for the geese to drink regularly, the occurrence of this disease can be prevented. (8) Raw Tinglizi powder, add an appropriate amount of warm water each time and drench, 2 g per goose, 3 times daily, for 2-3 consecutive days, with good results. It can also be mixed into feed at 2 g per goose per dose and fed, for 3 consecutive days. (9) Huoxiang 30 g, Huanglian 30 g, Dahuang 30 g, Cangzhu 50 g, Huangqin 30 g, Wumei 60 g, Houpo 60 g, Huangmei 30 g, Banlangen 80 g. Except that Dahuang and Wumei are ground into powder and wrapped separately, the remaining medicines are ground together into a fine powder, then mixed into feed and fed, 2 g per goose per dose, twice daily, for 2-3 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 95%. At the beginning of the disease use Dahuang and not Wumei; if diarrhea has lasted more than 3 days, then use Wumei and not Dahuang. (10) Garlic, Daqingye and Yimucao are decocted in water, then the garlic is pounded into a paste and mixed with the medicinal residue into feed for feeding, 1 dose per day, 1 dose in the morning and 1 in the evening, for 3-5 consecutive days, with an efficacy of more than 96%. (11) Dried Chuanxinlian 90%, dried chicken gizzard lining 8%, dried Gancao 2%, dried together and crushed into powder; young geese 1-2 g per bird per dose, adult geese 2-3 g, drenched or mixed into feed and fed, twice daily, for 2-3 consecutive days.