Bad Parents

[jude2000]

OK, my Pilgrims are roughly a year old. One male, two females...When her first two eggs hatched, she threw them from the nest into the middle of the goose hut and all three threatened them by hissing and snapping at the poor little guys. The other female picked one up and threw it and killed it. At that point I jumped in and saved the other along with all the eggs that were left.

I put her in a swimming pool w/ heat lamp and two days later a male gosling hatched out. I was sooo glad she got a companion! Now I'm raising up these two seperate...Parents want nothing to do with them...except violence. A day after I saved them, I tried to reintroduce the baby to the mother and she went into attack mode again. She had no clue that they were hers or even what the little aliens were! The babys are three weeks old and so sweet and growing like crazy (as they do) but I'm not set up to house and raise geese seperately...I'll prolly sell t5hem to a good home...But has anybody else experienced this type of behavior?

Jude in Md.

 

[sianara]

My pilgrims are only 4.5 weeks old and this is my first time having geese but I wanted to say it sounds as though it's just "first time parent confusion syndrome". A few years ago I had silkies. Now silkies are "supposed" to be the best chicken parents around right? The first time they went broody two of my hens killed at least one of their own chicks when it was pipping. I was so ticked off the second time it happened I gave them away to a friend of mine who breeds silkies. She's had them for 3 years now and says they are the best mothers ever! Hence why I believe they were just confused by the whole parent thing the first time around.

I'll keep an eye on this thread and will watch mine like a hawk (pun intended

) next year when they go broody for the first time.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[Going Bhonkers]

I think you can still introduce the parents & "kids" once the goslings are a little older. There's a thread somewhere on the geese forum (a couple, actually) that have to do with when to introduce & how to introduce goslings to a flock. Go to "Advanced Search" to help narrow it down

 

[Miss Lydia]

Maybe this will help.. Good luck and

https://www.backyardchickens.com/search.php?search=Introducing+goslings+to+the+flock+

 

[jude2000]

Thank you everyone for your help...

Jude in Md.

 

[JasoninMN]

If she won't accept them don't push it. I had two goslings injured trying to get the older geese to adopt them. It looks like things were working out for a few minutes then an adult grabbed a gosling and threw it. With in seconds it did the same to another gosling. One gosling ended up with a cut throat, which healed fine. The other ended up with a terrible broken wing where the 2 inches of bone popped through the skin.

 

[Miss Lydia]

If she won't accept them don't push it. I had two goslings injured trying to get the older geese to adopt them. It looks like things were working out for a few minutes then an adult grabbed a gosling and threw it. With in seconds it did the same to another gosling. One gosling ended up with a cut throat, which healed fine. The other ended up with a terrible broken wing where the 2 inches of bone popped through the skin.

Yikes that doesn't sound good at all. Hope the OP has much better results.