Bad idea to buy a goose/gander pair at same time from hatchery ?

[farmland5]

Hello,

We are looking to buy French Toulouse geese that we may eventually breed. Is it a bad idea to buy a male/female gooseling pair at the same time from the same hatchery from an inbreeding perspective?

We are in the process of planting an orchard. Next summer we plan to get ducks. The purpose of geese is the guard the ducks from hawks and weed the orchard. Right now all we have are chickens. Is it better to get 1-2 pairs of gees now (that will bond to each other) and add the ducks next year or to get the gooslings and ducklings all at the same time? Or is it better to get the geese now and let them bond with eachother before adding ducks?

Are the geese likely to get along with chickens?

 

[Goosebaby]

Issues with inbreeding start to appear after several generations so I don’t think it’s too big of an issue. I don’t know how many pairs Metzer sourced from Toulouse initially so I can’t guess at what their genetic variability is at this point, all I can say is my pair from Metzer definitely looked different enough from each other that I can guess they most likely are not siblings.

Something to keep in mind about French Toulouse. They’re wonderful and fairly hardy, but they are not show quality birds. French Toulouse is a production Toulouse not much different than any other production Toulouse, they just happen to be sourced from Toulouse.

Raising goslings with ducklings has challenges because goslings start out bigger grow a lot faster than ducklings, this can create bullying.
As adults geese and ducks can get along, or they won’t. The most likely scenario is they’ll tolerate each other. It’s advisable that they’re kept in a space that’s large enough that they don’t invade each others personal space often and at night they should have separate coops/ sheds to sleep in.
With my flock most of the time it’s the ducks that actually bully the geese as adults, the issue is when a goose has had enough and finally stands up to a duck it can be deadly if the duck can’t get away.

The same goes for chickens, ducks and geese. Everyone can coexist if they’re not in each others faces. Ducks will also absolutely destroy any clean water in sight in a matter of seconds so it’s best that chickens can access their own separate water that the ducks can’t. Keeping chickens and ducks in the same coop will inevitably lead to ducks covered in chicken poo every morning.

You can start off with as many pairs of geese as you like but definitely spend time socializing them. If you’re not used to geese dealing with multiple hormonal ganders in breeding season can be a lot to cope with if they’re not bonded to you.

 

[farmland5]

Ok. Thank you for the feedback. Is there a different breed of geese you'd recommend over the French Toulouse? We were interested in this breed because we understand its large and calm. We also considered the Embden.

Based off what you wrote, would your recommend going ahead and buying 1-2 pairs of geese now and bonding with them. We have plenty of paddocks they can eat. Then next year buying a bunch of ducklings and after those ducks have grown, introducing them and the geese into the orchard at the same time?

Is it best to buy the geese in male/female pairs or more females to males ratio?

 

[farmland5]

One last questions, do you think one breed is less at risk of hawk predation than another? Or is one breed more likely to scare off hawks from the chickens/ducks?

We have a lot of hawks! So many that I don't like to let the chickens free range unless we and/or the dogs are out there with the chickens. Our dogs though are not LGD....they are bonded to their people, not the hens.

The hawks are such a frustration that I've thought about building an absolutely enormous chicken run that is fully enclosed with hardware cloth, has a chicken wire roof, and doubles as our garden.

 

[Goosebaby]

Ok. Thank you for the feedback. Is there a different breed of geese you'd recommend over the French Toulouse? We were interested in this breed because we understand its large and calm. We also considered the Embden.

Based off what you wrote, would your recommend going ahead and buying 1-2 pairs of geese now and bonding with them. We have plenty of paddocks they can eat. Then next year buying a bunch of ducklings and after those ducks have grown, introducing them and the geese into the orchard at the same time?

Is it best to buy the geese in male/female pairs or more females to males ratio?

There aren’t really any cons to French Toulouse from my perspective, but most of mine are frenchies so I may be biased. I don’t show my birds so not being show quality isn’t a loss for me personally but if that’s something you were considering then it’s something to think about. American Buffs are the calmest breed I’ve encountered overall. I don’t have embdens so I can’t say what they’re like.

When you get your ducks and how you introduce them really depends on what you think is best or easiest depending on your life. Introducing birds when they’re young is easier to get them used to each other, they get more suspicious as they get older and geese can take awhile to get used to new things, but as I said raising them together when they’re babies can lead to the bigger ones poking at the smaller ones. It also depends on individual personality. Whichever option you choose socialization is key. Introducing them to each other often under supervision until they accept each other.

Geese partnerships depend on personality. Sometimes you can have one gander one goose pairs, sometimes it’s two geese to a gander and up to 8 geese to one gander. You could get an unfortunate situation where both girls gravitate to one gander and the other gander gets ostracized from their clique, or you could get both ganders obsessing and squabbling over one girl and ignoring the other. Ganders will also form really strong bonds with each other, they’ll still breed with the females but the girls are treated kinda like third wheels in the epic bromance. I’ve got a few of those in my flock.

If both ganders are squabbling over one girl you can decide who pairs with who, basically you just split the pairs up however you choose into different enclosures for a few weeks and that’s usually enough to sort out who’s with who. Once breeding season hormones subside everyone will usually go back to getting along again.

As for hawks, geese deter hawks just on their size and presence so breed doesn’t really make a difference that I’ve seen.