Pomeranian Goose Breed Thread

[cvamoca]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner- I was so worried about this girl I gave her her own thread.
I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada. My understanding is that Pomeranian's are extremely uncommon- but someone did bring a small flock into my province, so it's possible this lovely girl is one of those birds. I don't know, and can't really find any info. She is beautiful though- not as large as the white male. They were a rescue of sorts- the owner has to have a foot amputated and had to disperse his flock quickly. So, I took his 5 geese.
The food in her container was just "Flight Conditioner" pellets, which is a duck, goose, turkey, game bird feed offered by our local Purina dealer. I tried all different things and she wouldn't eat anything--but she's now up and about and eating well. She is thin-- had survived on chicken-scratch and bread apparently...we don't feed bread to waterfowl.
Her husband is a HUGE brute- I'm guessing Embden, and the three younger ones are also pure white. I was hoping for some type of auto-sexing gene, but I'm 95% sure one of the white offspring is a female, so that shoots the hypothesis down. I was hoping my three not related crossbreds were 2 females and one male- but the one I was hopeful is female- climbed on this this saddleback goose today, and did a teenager's interpretation of sex--well, tried. Had the wrong parts in the wrong places...
While I completely understand chicken behavior, and pretty much get duck behavior- geese are totally novel to me. So maybe that was just a dominance thing? This poor lady is pretty low down the pecking order, so we'll have to sort that out before spring. I keep my 3 imprinted "babies" in a different barn, as I don't want them picked on or losing their trust- they still think I'm Mom, and I'm happy with that. Want them to always be special.

 

[livininbrazil]

Sorry I didn't see this sooner- I was so worried about this girl I gave her her own thread.
I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada. My understanding is that Pomeranian's are extremely uncommon- but someone did bring a small flock into my province, so it's possible this lovely girl is one of those birds. I don't know, and can't really find any info. She is beautiful though- not as large as the white male. They were a rescue of sorts- the owner has to have a foot amputated and had to disperse his flock quickly. So, I took his 5 geese.
The food in her container was just "Flight Conditioner" pellets, which is a duck, goose, turkey, game bird feed offered by our local Purina dealer. I tried all different things and she wouldn't eat anything--but she's now up and about and eating well. She is thin-- had survived on chicken-scratch and bread apparently...we don't feed bread to waterfowl.
Her husband is a HUGE brute- I'm guessing Embden, and the three younger ones are also pure white. I was hoping for some type of auto-sexing gene, but I'm 95% sure one of the white offspring is a female, so that shoots the hypothesis down. I was hoping my three not related crossbreds were 2 females and one male- but the one I was hopeful is female- climbed on this this saddleback goose today, and did a teenager's interpretation of sex--well, tried. Had the wrong parts in the wrong places...
While I completely understand chicken behavior, and pretty much get duck behavior- geese are totally novel to me. So maybe that was just a dominance thing? This poor lady is pretty low down the pecking order, so we'll have to sort that out before spring. I keep my 3 imprinted "babies" in a different barn, as I don't want them picked on or losing their trust- they still think I'm Mom, and I'm happy with that. Want them to always be special.

Hi cv, just out of interest, my original 3 imprinted geese live with my other geese. They´ve stayed very tame, still my babies. Also, mounting doesn´t mean a lot as regards sex... they all do it, regardless of whether male or female. I have both chickens and ducks here, too, but my geese are by far my favourite.
As regards the auto-sexing thing, it is possible to have a white female, but it´s not common. And the white gene in the Embden isn´t the same as the dilute gene in the auto-sexing, of course. A couple of generations along the line, you might have some interesting pieds, depending on who breeds with whom.
Maybe she is one of the descendants of the flock you said about. The smaller size may be because of it being a closed flock, and lost the size of the Poms, or maybe she´s cross-bred, and has the spot gene. Nice bird, anyway, glad she´s fine now.

 

[ashandvine]

I now have two buff and two grey yearlings. They are sweet little monsters and I don't know how I am keeping. I am concerned my grey female is old enough not to be fertile now but her eggs were developing in the bator they just didn't make it.

 

[cvamoca]

I just saw an ad on Kijiiji-- an older man not far away has a whole flock of 11 to give away. All pied/saddlebacks. There are 4 breeding age, and the rest are older/retired. I have to wonder if my lone saddleback girl came from his flock? While she's supposed to be young- I believe she's probably older, but have no way of knowing. But she's "been around"--she knows what a pond is, but not a duck pool. Can't climb in the pool- but was very happy to see our pond had temporarily filled up. She wants to lead her family, but is still sore and lets the bigger males boss her around.

I'm realising that this is like taking on a horse in longevity--geese live so long--my chickens--many of them are coming up on 10 years old.
My husband gave me my first show chickens for my 40th birthday. I have raised hundreds of chickens since then-- just had my 51st birthday. Got my first geese- the three sweet babies this summer. (They are not Pomeranians- Mom is Chinese and Dad is Embden, 2 are marked though, but light weight, long legged.) So I went from 3 to 8 really quickly.

I don't know nearly enough about geese yet- but I can tell you- they are awesome. My "babies", maybe because of the chatty Chinese part of them, sing and chat to me all day. They only yell occasionally. They follow me single file to do all the chores, go for walks with me and my dog, and we practise "flying" morning and evening. When I put them to bed, I have to go out after supper and give everyone hugs- the white "Lucy" who's probably a "Bruce"- loves me. He stares into my eyes and curls that long neck around mine while snuffling. OMG- why didn't I know geese were awesome YEARS ago?

 

[livininbrazil]

I just saw an ad on Kijiiji-- an older man not far away has a whole flock of 11 to give away. All pied/saddlebacks. There are 4 breeding age, and the rest are older/retired. I have to wonder if my lone saddleback girl came from his flock? While she's supposed to be young- I believe she's probably older, but have no way of knowing. But she's "been around"--she knows what a pond is, but not a duck pool. Can't climb in the pool- but was very happy to see our pond had temporarily filled up. She wants to lead her family, but is still sore and lets the bigger males boss her around.

I'm realising that this is like taking on a horse in longevity--geese live so long--my chickens--many of them are coming up on 10 years old.
My husband gave me my first show chickens for my 40th birthday. I have raised hundreds of chickens since then-- just had my 51st birthday. Got my first geese- the three sweet babies this summer. (They are not Pomeranians- Mom is Chinese and Dad is Embden, 2 are marked though, but light weight, long legged.) So I went from 3 to 8 really quickly.

I don't know nearly enough about geese yet- but I can tell you- they are awesome. My "babies", maybe because of the chatty Chinese part of them, sing and chat to me all day. They only yell occasionally. They follow me single file to do all the chores, go for walks with me and my dog, and we practise "flying" morning and evening. When I put them to bed, I have to go out after supper and give everyone hugs- the white "Lucy" who's probably a "Bruce"- loves me. He stares into my eyes and curls that long neck around mine while snuffling. OMG- why didn't I know geese were awesome YEARS ago?

Exactly! They´re so personable aren´t they? I like my chickens. I have mainly Brahmas, and they´re very sweet. I have muscovies that pretty well look after themselves, but the ducklings are sweet and get very tame. Then there are the geese....they really connect, don´t they?

Sounds like that flock may well be where she came from. And now you´ll go from 8 to 20 or so in no time!

 

[livininbrazil]

I now have two buff and two grey yearlings. They are sweet little monsters and I don't know how I am keeping. I am concerned my grey female is old enough not to be fertile now but her eggs were developing in the bator they just didn't make it.

Hi Ash... any pics, then? Did you breed them, or buy them in?
You don´t know how you are keeping?
Shame about the eggs. Well, she´s obviously fertile. Did you leave any with her to incubate naturally?

 

[ashandvine]

I meant I don't know who I am keeping. I have eleven geese here and these four were incubated between moms sharing a nest. The Poms and Sebs got together a little bit so I just let them sit the nest together. It worked out really well. The older female I have here is about five now. The younger is a year now. When I was setting eggs in the incubator I totally failed out on incubating goose eggs but when I started all of them were developing so I would think that the older is still laying fertile eggs. I haven't taken pictures for a bit and the ones I do have are with the camera... which is borrowed by my partner at the moment so no knowing where it is actually.
I was lamenting earlier in the year that I never thought I'd get babies here but we did. Five, with one death. Gosh they are tough to get away from those mommas!

 

[livininbrazil]

I meant I don't know who I am keeping. I have eleven geese here and these four were incubated between moms sharing a nest. The Poms and Sebs got together a little bit so I just let them sit the nest together. It worked out really well. The older female I have here is about five now. The younger is a year now. When I was setting eggs in the incubator I totally failed out on incubating goose eggs but when I started all of them were developing so I would think that the older is still laying fertile eggs. I haven't taken pictures for a bit and the ones I do have are with the camera... which is borrowed by my partner at the moment so no knowing where it is actually.
I was lamenting earlier in the year that I never thought I'd get babies here but we did. Five, with one death. Gosh they are tough to get away from those mommas!

Oh, I see. I´m sure that older goose has a few years of breeding to go yet, though. Any time I´ve had sharing nests, it´s ended up without goslings, so I try to avoid it. Just goes to show, even a shared nest can be better than an incubator for goose eggs!
So, congrats on your 4.

 

[cvamoca]

Took the babies (not poms, just cute Chinese/Embden crosses) for a walk today around our "block". Such sweet things. It was probably 1/2 mile. While I love my chickens and have had some close relationships with many of them, these little geese are like my children. Follow me everywhere. We saw an eagle, and they all hollered.

Oh yeah, Hubby and my dog also participated in the walk..
.

 

[CherokeeFlats]

So I love my Poms.... Got my first Goose egg today

Cracked it open to check fertility and IT'S FERTILE!!!!

So, now I need to figure out when I wanna set eggs for Spring.

Did have a quick question though, how long does it take for Goose Eggs to hatch??