I can't help you that much, but I can at least say that you don't need to worry about your goose getting rabies. Only mammals get rabies, so your birds are safe from that at least.

I know that doesn't answer your whole question, so hopefully many of the more knowledgeable members will give you advice on what else should be done.

Good luck!!
Jill

Thanks, Jill! So glad to hear that rabies is off the table.

Now I guess I still need to know whether his beak could get infected and how to protect him from further attacks by this unknown assailant.

Carol

I have two female geese and they are a hoot. They will go after and come in contact with any human, dog, cat anything larger than them. When it comes to worms, frogs, snakes, mice they run like heck. Now chickens on the other hand are great mousers. Guess you really need to find out what the unknown assailant is, mouse, rat, larger? don't use the push open door container the animal will only get stuck inside. Make sure the food inside of the food dish is completely visible to the goose so the goose can see in, he'll wait until its clear to eat. Peronally I would need to find out what's injuring the goose and send it packing.

How funny (about your geese)! And I had no idea that chickens are mousers!!! Wow. I thought chickens were vegetarians. And how can they sneak up on a mouse???

Thanks for the advice about the push open door for the food. I started putting the lid on the goose food when it gets dark, since the unauthorized eaters get into it at night.

I don't think there's a way for me to find out what's eating the food unless I install an infrared camera out there. The times that he honks at night (rarely), I go out to see what's going on, and don't see anyone else out there. I did find some poop in the food before I started covering it up at night (it's in a plastic box that's about 18" x 36") but it doesn't look like rat poop. Seems like a coon or possum would be too big to poop in the food.

His scratches are healing up and he doesn't have any new ones, so I think covering up the food did the trick. Although his food is visible during the day, at night there's no light out there, so I bet that's when he got scratched.

Carol

Chickens love meat. In their pens you'll see them scratching the ground, they are looking for bugs. Mine love pork chop sliced really thin then I drop the bone on the ground and she pecks away. She does a better job than I can cleaning that bone. They go crazy for meal worms too. i could go on and on.

Wow. Really. My concept of chickens just changed completely.

Do other birds eat meat, too???

Ducks and Muscovies love worms, bugs, grubs, mealworms, black solder fly larvae, slugs, flies etc..............

Eric

Ever heard the expression "the early bird gets the worm?"