Geese training?

[Miss Lydia]

Oh yes if they know they can bully something they sure will it was going on here with my dogs and the geese mainly the gander. One day he had pushed my middle size dog too far and she grabbed him by the neck. Thank goodness I was there to stop any further aggression. From then on my geese and dogs are always supervised and if the geese start towards the dogs with head down they get a pole put between them and the dogs that usually stops them. As long as your gander knows he can scare and upset the horse he will keep it up..Only thing I can see is to keep them locked up or wait till the horse tramples him trying to get away and hope he lives to learn a lesson.

 

[cornish.couple]

This is one of the best threads we've read.

Olive can you clear something up for me?

You stated 'They're not love pecks, they're dominance pecks. He is exerting dominance over you.'

When sat with our flock in the back yard they approach us and what feels more like a nibble/ preen than a peck, however they can nip during this process. Should we not be allowing this either? Is this just a sign of dominance as well. We have 9 American Buff's that are aged between 4-10 weeks old and unsexed.

 

[Linda Hicks]

Oh yes if they know they can bully something they sure will it was going on here with my dogs and the geese mainly the gander. One day he had pushed my middle size dog too far and she grabbed him by the neck. Thank goodness I was there to stop any further aggression. From then on my geese and dogs are always supervised and if the geese start towards the dogs with head down they get a pole put between them and the dogs that usually stops them. As long as your gander knows he can scare and upset the horse he will keep it up..Only thing I can see is to keep them locked up or wait till the horse tramples him trying to get away and hope he lives to learn a lesson.

Lydia....thx for replying. Yes the miniature horse does take after the gander when hard pressed but my larger horse is a milder animal and just runs now. Since the breeding season is over, things have quieted down. The gander never attacks me.
I have been trying to to catch the geese up in the horse corrals and throw a plastic rake at them which has made an impression with them, especially when it is a surprise encounter. When they see me coming they get out of the corrals quickly. But I can't stay up there all the time. Will keep working on surprise visits though.

 

[Miss Lydia]

They say never feed geese out of your hand, oh but its fun. lol I do feed my geese out of my hand I have my hand flat with dog kibble they love it. My gander does not get to eat out of my hand during breeding season. He likes to bite and I am not going to give him a chance. When gosling nibble I don't mind it's the nips you don't want. They try everything with their bills because they can't feel with hands so you have to decide what is nibble or out right bite. My gander didn't start biting till he became sexual at around 8-9 months old. I don't think dominance comes into play with 4-10 week old goslings.
@Iain Utah she has had way more gosling than I lets see if she'll weigh in.

 

[Iain Utah]

I like my birds to be very human friendly, so I hand feed all my birds (geese, ducks and chickens). I let them nibble on me and preen my hair. Sometimes as juveniles or first breeding season, a few ganders have tested me, and like geese, horses and other herding animals, I use whatever degree of force necessary to convince that bird to not test me again. It usually only takes one or two encounters to establish pecking order with geese (unlike my rooster who still has to test me from time to time, despite getting his butt soundly kicked).

 

[Misty’s Felicity]

This was really helpful.
I’m getting 2 female African goslings in 2 weeks

I had a huge flock of roosters for a while and they only respected me because I was the only one that would stand up to them. My grandma ( only 60) took care of my boys while I was gone for a few weeks and my best rooster turned really mean because she would run from him. It took me months before he completely stopped challenging me and I had to escort my grandma out any time she wanted to go to the pen until the day he died. Roosters are a little less complicated tho. Basically they run at you you run at them and boot them back a few feet and keep doing that till they run then you chance them for a few minutes problem solved

 

[Leader Bee]

Goslings test things with their mouths since they don't have hands, one thing you don't want to do is hand feed, it gets them into the habit of grabbing food.

Sorry to bring back this thread but i'm having this exact problem with Norbert and Beep beep, i'm using cucumber slices to train them to come to their names and i've even trained Beep Beep to "give me a kiss" when I ask for one but when I give them their treat for complying they tend to snatch rather than take gently...I've met more gentle wild Greylags than mine when it comes to taking gently so any advice would be great.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Put the treat in your palm, my female will about take my finger off if I hold the treat in my fingers so I put it in the palm of my hand and that’s better.

 

[Leader Bee]

Put the treat in your palm, my female will about take my finger off if I hold the treat in my fingers so I put it in the palm of my hand and that’s better.

That's about right Lydia, sometimes they'll end up swallowing half my finger too the way i'm doing it right now so i'll try with an open palm instead and hope they learn to be more gentle; Any idea what causes the snatching if you do it that way?

 

[Miss Lydia]

I think with my female she is just excited about getting a treat my gander doesn’t . He’s more gentle.