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Large Tape Worm Found in Greylag


Pole Star
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Last night we had our annual shoot do & one of the things discussed was when two of our chaps had discovered a large tape worm hanging out of a shot Greylag goose ! .

This is some thing I have not come across before & hope I don't ! but when you consider the amount of droppings left by hundreds of grazing or roosting geese leave in the fields then one must consider that these ghastly worms pass on their eggs via the droppings ?.

 

Sometimes I have noticed some dogs have a liking goose droppings & I have sometimes caught my own dog eating them if my back is turned & what of grazing sheep & cattle ???. .

 

Pole Star :hmm:

Edited by Pole Star
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Yeah it's possible

Tapeworm is very common through out sheep and cattle and has been seen in dogs. The problem is people dosing sheep and cattle are moving away from the white worms (1-bz) which kills tape worms because of worm resistance and to clear worms (3-ml) which doesn't touch tapeworms! So tapeworms are more common than ever.

Having said that the bulk of tapeworm's are species specific so the tapeworm of a sheep shouldn't effect a goose!

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Domestic geese can pick up tape worms so I would not be surprised if wild geese can too.

 

Link http://animal-health.library4farming.org/Animal-Swine-Rabbits/DISEASES-AND-PARASITES-AFFECTING-poultry/Parasites-Affecting-Ducks-and-Geese.html

 

 

Quote from the above link.

 

 

Tapeworms occur occasionally in domestic ducks and geese in the United States but are of less economic importance than the roundworms.

One kind of tapeworm, Hymenolepis tenuirostris, caused the death of a large flock of geese in Oregon in 1921. The affected birds showed weakness, emaciation, incoordination, and diarrhea. It is the only time this tapeworm has been associated with death of geese in this country, but it has been reported on several occasions in Europe.

 

Edited by anser2
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I could be totally wrong here but I don't think geese get tape worms. They can get ascarids though,(capillaria and heterakis).

 

Did you get a picture as it would be interesting to see?

 

 

 

Ps I could well be wrong with the above so happy to be corrected :good:

 

Wish I had been there too see it & the chaps who did said it was revolting ! I did ask them over dinner if they pulled it out & measured it in the name science ! & the reply I got from them is not for printing here !!! so sadly there is no photo to prove the case .

Its the first I have ever heard of such a horrid beast in a goose but I have seen worms in a kestrel I prepared for taxidermy years ago , I will ask around the people I know who keep tame geese & see what they know .

 

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Domestic geese can pick up tape worms so I would not be surprised if wild geese can too.

 

Link http://animal-health.library4farming.org/Animal-Swine-Rabbits/DISEASES-AND-PARASITES-AFFECTING-poultry/Parasites-Affecting-Ducks-and-Geese.html

 

 

Quote from the above link.

 

 

 

 

Tapeworms occur occasionally in domestic ducks and geese in the United States but are of less economic importance than the roundworms.

One kind of tapeworm, Hymenolepis tenuirostris, caused the death of a large flock of geese in Oregon in 1921. The affected birds showed weakness, emaciation, incoordination, and diarrhea. It is the only time this tapeworm has been associated with death of geese in this country, but it has been reported on several occasions in Europe.

Edited by Pole Star
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Why would it cause a panic?

Well you know what Joe public is like !!!

 

I certainly dont want a squatter ! I think I posted on PW a long time back of a some one I knew when I was living in the mountains in El Salvador in the late 70s who was fighting with the rebels & who ate infected pork & when he got to London he was not alone !.

He needed a few trips to the Tropical Diseases Hospital to evict the worm ! , God knows how long it could have been !.

 

ps I do under stand in humans they can get as long 16ft ! Yuk !

Edited by Pole Star
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Tapeworm have intermediate hosts but I don't know of any of the intermediates being humans?

 

Chickens, pheasants, partridge, pretty sure they can all get tapeworm but chances of them having the intermediate host close enough and not being treated for roundworm is rare.

 

Different in the wild but still rare ?

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Tapeworm have intermediate hosts but I don't know of any of the intermediates being humans?

 

Chickens, pheasants, partridge, pretty sure they can all get tapeworm but chances of them having the intermediate host close enough and not being treated for roundworm is rare.

 

Different in the wild but still rare ?

Yes I pretty much understand that but its what Joe Public is like ! any way my panic comment was a little light hearted.
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Wish I had been there too see it & the chaps who did said it was revolting ! I did ask them over dinner if they pulled it out & measured it in the name science ! & the reply I got from them is not for printing here !!! so sadly there is no photo to prove the case .

Its the first I have ever heard of such a horrid beast in a goose but I have seen worms in a kestrel I prepared for taxidermy years ago , I will ask around the people I know who keep tame geese & see what they know .

 

:lol: I think I would have taken it out for a better look..as weird as that sounds!

 

 

At least it doesn't sound like a common problem.

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:lol: I think I would have taken it out for a better look..as weird as that sounds!

 

 

At least it doesn't sound like a common problem.

So would I have done & if no camera had been handy I would have taken it home & got a pic of it stretched out ! & then put it in a jar of formalin so I could have passed it around over dinner ! , but that's just me .

 

Pole Star

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Sure it was not taglitelie (sp) :lol: (sorry pole star I could not resist) Glad to hear your are out with the gun again.

On the health front, would a goose having worms have an adverse effect on the actual meat if it was cooked and then eaten ? May this also have a bearing on the ammount of geese on the Orkneys grazing on the same feilds as cattle & sheep. I may be wrong are all farm animals wormed if they are going into the food chain.

Pardon the pun but could this open a can of worms with DEFRA and others !

 

BBL

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If a goose had worms it wouldn't effect the meat all. If would effect the bird before it was shot eg it would lose condition if it had a heavy burden of worms. Most animals are wormed through out there life's even organic animals. All medicines have withdrawal dates which means farmers cant send meat to be slaughtered within this period. Normally about 60days and you double it for organic animals.

Edited by Shoot-rhino
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Ever hear of jumping the species barrier ??? they say it happens in other things ! & eating infected pork in some parts of the world is asking for trouble especially on the American continent I understand but I am not not completely sure of that ???.

 

I was watching the Time Team program some time ago & they were excavating a grave of some one who had died in the 1600s & around the area where his stomach use to be the archeologists found some thing that looked like a pigeon egg ? turned out it was a tape worm cyst so they said ? .

Any way that's off the topic of worms in geese ! . Any one for roast Greylag goose ! ? .

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The intermediate host (which would have the cyst) tends to be part of the diet of the worms target creature.

 

For geese the intermediate host will be goose food - fish? Water crustaceans? Not sure, unlikely that evolution has determined the intermediate host of a geese parasite is a human.

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Sure it was not taglitelie (sp) :lol: (sorry pole star I could not resist) Glad to hear your are out with the gun again.

On the health front, would a goose having worms have an adverse effect on the actual meat if it was cooked and then eaten ? May this also have a bearing on the ammount of geese on the Orkneys grazing on the same feilds as cattle & sheep. I may be wrong are all farm animals wormed if they are going into the food chain.

Pardon the pun but could this open a can of worms with DEFRA and others !

 

BBL

Thats really what I was thinking when I said This could cause a panic ! will we have DEFRA up here soon gathering up goose ***** in the name of science & public health ? .

 

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The intermediate host (which would have the cyst) tends to be part of the diet of the worms target creature.

 

For geese the intermediate host will be goose food - fish? Water crustaceans? Not sure, unlikely that evolution has determined the intermediate host of a geese parasite is a human.

Parasitic worms are a subject I know little of but I do know that I hate the beastly things & I would not like one lodging in my stomach or my dogs ect .

 

 

Edited by Pole Star
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The intermediate host (which would have the cyst) tends to be part of the diet of the worms target creature.

 

For geese the intermediate host will be goose food - fish? Water crustaceans? Not sure, unlikely that evolution has determined the intermediate host of a geese parasite is a human.

 

I could be wrong but I thought that geese were grazers and only eat grass, corn, tattie stubble etc and not any fish or crustaceans. If the geese are all over the fields and dumping everywhere, could the parisite be transfered to the ground. Like Pole Star I dont know anything about this subject of worms but I am sure that there more learnered people out there who do

Edited by big bad lindz
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