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“Wing Rap” by Dr.Teresa Morishita Question: I heard that geese can get a crop impaction from eating litter. Is this true? Answer: Unfortunately, geese can impact their crops by eating too much indigestible fibrous material. This indigestible fibrous material can include such things as grasses, litter, even newspaper. Crop impaction usually occurs when a bird is exposed to a great quantity of indigestible fibrous material which attracts its interest. Birds are naturally curious and may ingest new materials that they might not have been previously exposed to. I have seen a case of a goose dying from impaction of its crop with newspaper. The bird was temporarily placed overnight in a fenced area that used shredded newspaper as its bedding. Unfortunately, the goose ingested the newspaper and impacted its crop and it was found dead in the morning. Birds with impacted crops will have a hard swollen mass in the region where the neck joins the main body of the bird. You can feel it if you touch the bird in this region. Surgery to remove the mass is the only way to treat an impacted crop. Hence, it is important to evaluate the goose, or any bird, if it is placed in new surroundings. Moreover, make sure you provide plenty of fresh food and water so the bird does not become distracted and ingests foreign materials. Teresa Y. Morishita, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACPV is a Professor and Extension Poultry Veterinarian in the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. She is a board-certified poultry veterinarian and is also the Director of the Avian Disease Investigation Laboratory at The Ohio State University. She welcomes your questions and invites you to contact her at the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University, 1920 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210 or contact her through this website at www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/poultry/