- Feb 2, 2013
- 24
- 1
- 24
I have six adult Embden geese from Holderread Farm. Three 1-year ganders, two 1-year gooses, and one 3-year goose. The dominant gander is a bully who sometimes chases the others away from the water buckets, especially the 3-year goose. She almost completely keeps away from the others due to this bully gander aggresively chasing her (the bully has his own female follower goose I assume is his mate). Yesterday I put one of the water buckets far away from the others and the 3-year goose went to it and just drank and drank like she was really really thirsty. So I have to do something about this bully gander. Either I need to section off a third of the fenced yard for this bully and his mate; or the bully is going to go to freezer camp. Sectioning off would be a bit inconvenient, but doable if necessary. If I did do that, would one of the other two ganders assume a dominant role to the extent that he too would become a bully? Is this sort of behavior universal among whichever gander is dominant, or is the bullying probably unique to this one particular gander? Also the gooses do not much go into the well-lit 10-ft x 12-ft shed I set up for them with three large "A" frames within. I see signs that they visit it, but no eggs within yet. Kinda bummed out about that since offspring is why I got them. Should I lock the females into the shed overnight to acclimate them to it, or would that be a traumatizing experience for them which would cause tham to be even more avoiding of it? Any advice on the bully and egg situation would be MUCH appreciated!