Can I introduce African Geese with my Duck flock?

[FunQuail]

Hi,
Is it possible to get African Geese to help protect my ducks? I was planning on 3 females. Would this work? Would they let my ducks know if there is danger? They would be staying with my 8 ducks, 7 girls 1 boy. Would they get along?
Thank you,
Kelly

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

My geese attack my ducks and chickens. They get more aggressive during the breeding season.

 

[FunQuail]

My geese attack my ducks and chickens. They get more aggressive during the breeding season.

So that's a no? What did you do? Did you introduce the geese when they were little?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Yes my geese were young when I moved them out to the shed. They took to my goats. They weren't bad their first year, but when they hit that first spring as adults they changed a bit, and chased the chickens and ducks out of the goat area. My American buffs weren't too bad, but than I added some pilgrims this past spring as young ones, and they turned out to be a bit more aggressive towards other birds. We will see how bad they get next spring. They will pin birds down if any can be cornered.

I haven't had Africans, but I believe they are a bit more aggressive in general.

 

[Goosebaby]

Geese can get along with ducks, for a little while, but most of the time it can become deadly for the ducks. Sometimes they can seem like they’re getting along great but it can all change in a day.

I haven’t had great expierience with goslings being around mature ducks either, ducks aren’t maternal in the way geese are, if they aren’t their babies they just aren’t, best case scenario the ducks will run from them like they’re gremlins, worse case scenario the ducks will try to kill goslings.

 

[Finnie]

My first 3 geese (chinese) were raised by the seller with ducks. So I put them with my ducks and had no problem. Then in the spring I gave them baby ducklings to raise. They loved them!

Then in late summer, I traded two of mine (adults) for two (juveniles) a friend had. That left one of my adult geese to show the two new ones the ropes.

They seemed to get along with the ducks very well, until recently. Now I think the new gander is trying to mate the young ducks. It will look like he is biting her neck and trying to wrestle her to the ground. She quacks and tries to get loose. After a while (I watched to see how they would handle it) he stopped, she shook herself off and walked a few feet away, and that was it.

That led me to believe that he wasn’t trying to kill her, or else they would not have stayed near each other. Now, with the size difference, I’m sure he could do some damage, trying to mate a duck. It is my hope that when he realizes he has two geese to mate with, he will leave the ducks alone. I hope he hasn’t permanently bonded with the duck. Then I would have to separate them.

Edit to add: Now that I think about it, since the duck was raised by geese, she might be bonded to the gander. She might actually be willing to mate with him. I’ll have to rethink how I’m handling this.

 

[FunQuail]

Thank you for the responses, it sounds like it’s tricky. I was hoping the geese would keep the ducks safer but it sounds like they could also be a threat.

 

[hereorthere]

Every situation varies...I've got 2 geese hanging out with my ducks. An African & an Emblem, introduced to the duck flock as goslings while the ladies (3 peking & a muscovy) were at least 1yo. Geese and peking get along fine- I call them The Pack. It's the pekings who call the shots while the geese follow them everywhere, and they move as one cohesive whole. If I separate the geese to get them to graze and entice them to eat the fallen apples in our orchard, they stay but a few minutes and then run back to the fence crying to be let back into the coop area where the ducks are. So annoying