Staples - Lesson Learned

[curly1]

I picked up my 2 yr old Pilgrim goose last weekend and was surprised at how little she weighed, I thought it was unusual, but it had been a long time since I'd lifted her so I thought maybe I just didn't remember her being that light. Over the next few days I noticed her becoming weaker, yesterday she could barely stand. Today I took her to the vet and he could find nothing wrong with her, but it was obvious something was going on. On a hunch I requested an xray. The xray showed a whole slew of metal staples in her gut.

A couple years ago my husband and I lined one of our horse pastures in chicken wire, so we could let the chickens/geese/turkeys outside without worrying about predators. We stapled the wire to the 4-board fence. Over the last few years the staples have worked loose and fallen on the ground. The goose ate the staples and now we have the rest of the story.

I imagine she won't be the last one on our farm to die from "metal poisoning" since they have all had the opportunity to eat staples. I wanted to share this with the rest of you so you don't repeat the same mistake. DO NOT use staples or other small ingestible items to construct your poultry enclosure with. They like to pick up small shiney objects and eat them. It was a horrible stupid mistake for us to make and I lost my favorite goose today because of it.

~Vicki

[azduckranch]

Harbor Freight has several magnetic sweepers or magnetic retrieval tools which you can use to sweep the affected area to prevent future losses. Almost all staple are carbon steel so it should work. If they are stainless steel or other metal it will not. Good luck.

[KandBinMN]

Last year one of my Mallard females acted very uncomfortable and wouldn't eat. The next day I took her in, XRays were taken and NaNa had eaten a piece of 1/4 inch hardware cloth that must have been old and falling apart somewhere. I had to give her mineral oil by syringe, orally, and I never saw it in her poo, but within a few days she was acting normal. In Oct. she hatched out two darling ducklings which she took care of by day and allowed me to take in the house at night to keep them warm. Not every case goes that well, but that's what they call hardware disease I believe. It's amazing how some have no interest in stuff like that and the next will eat anything, but then it's the same with some dogs too.

[goosedragon]

Harbor Freight has several magnetic sweepers or magnetic retrieval tools which you can use to sweep the affected area to prevent future losses. Almost all staple are carbon steel so it should work. If they are stainless steel or other metal it will not. Good luck.Minor point, Some stainless steel alloys are magnetic, some are not. I don't have any stainless staples around to test so I can't say more.~gd