Chilly goose

[SouthernPride]

This morning the temp got down to 30 degrees. My 2 geese sleep in the pond during the night. When they flew up to greet meet me this morning (before the sun was up over trees) one of them plopped right down and was shivering. They seem fine now that the sun is up and are even back in the water. Is this normal or should I be concerned? I plan on getting some hay for their coop but I doubt they will sit in there. They only go in there to eat. I have a fence around the coop so I could lock them in there but I still don't know that they will utilize the hay has a warming place. I think they rely on the sun and their own body heat. Any suggestions?

 

[goosedragon]

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If they have a dry spot out of the wind they will be fine. as you know they can take cold water and even sleep on it but it does take some energy out of their body. NC is colder than MS [I assume] and I would provide hay both in a barn and under a shed type roof to keep it dry. most mornings I would find them dug into the hay in the shed with jusst their backs covered with their wings exposed. This was also their favored nesting area. If the sun was up they would move out on to grass plop down and eat what they could reach with their long necks [I only fed at night because I wanted them to graze] later they would graze until full and then nap time!
When we started to have preditor problems they would be confined to the barn at night and a large fenced area during the day. Frankly heat was more a problem than cold The first 100F day I came home to find them laying on their backs with their feet in the air and their wings spred I thought they were dead. I started syraying with a hose and they celebrated the cool 'rain'~gd

 

[SouthernPride]

I can't even imagine what my reaction would be to see them belly up. I think I will get the hay and lock them up whether they like it or not. Thanks for the response.

 

[Miss Lydia]

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I would lock them up, they will get use to it. Mine has. and when it's very cold they probably are a little sluggish which makes them prime targets for preds.

 

[goosedragon]

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Well their body temp runs pretty high so they can dump enough when the temp is in the 90s but around 100 they find it hard to get rid of body heat since they aren't built for it, Mostly they depend upon evaporation from feathers wetted in a body of water. When they lay normally the wings act like a overcoat and holds heat in. Laying on their back thry can radiate from their underside In females they are built to radiate heat this way to hatch eggs. I'm not sure what you mean by lock them up but if confined to a building during the heat of the day make sure it is ventilated and it would Help to have a water source that they use to wet their feathers. I know of two Canada geese relocations that went wrong by confining geese in closed trucks. We have 'pest' Canadas that don't fly North for the summer. They are protected but it is possible to get a permit to relocate them. Shortly after the goslings hatch the adults will molt and it is possible to round them up since they will stick by their goslings. The one that got the most press the geese on the state capital grounds were rounded up to be relocated to the cooling lake of a nearby [~15miles] nuke power plant which wanted more wildlife to show how safe and "Green" they were. Only the few geese that got stuck in a A/C van survived the others in a big non A/C truck were DOA due to the heat. The TV showed the A/C goose release but not what the fate of the other geese was.
Just to be clear I lock up my geese at night [cooler then] in a barn but in the daytime they are confined in a fenced area protected by hot wires outside the fence and there are Kiddy pools for bathing and cooling. The water in these shallow pools gets fairly hot though.

 

[BirdBrain]

As long as they have a safe dry protected place to go they will be fine. It has been -11 F here lately and my geese are fine. They aren't fond of the snow though.