Choosing a Hatchery - Ideal poultry?

[Khota]

Woah, thank you for such an informative post!! Your geese are absolutely beautiful, I hope you have good luck with them this year! Such adorable little goslings too!
I think my area is pretty safe - Mostly because we have several dogs that I'm pretty sure would tear a new one into any animal that dared to cross into their yard. I think the worst issue I've had so far was a skunk, which I trapped/killed and haven't had another issue since. (Blocked the hole it was getting through.) Though other than skunks, I don't think there is many predators around where I live other than snakes and hawks that I've yet to have an issue with.
Do your geese ever give problems to your ducks? I've heard that newly introduced geese may sometimes bully smaller birds - but I'm wondering if the situation was more that they introduced adult geese that just thought of the ducks as invasive rather than as a part of their flock. Did you introduce your birds early on?
I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and scratch the saddleback pomeranian geese off and just going to go ahead and go with metzer as it seems like a much more safer option.

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

I don't recall the Geese and Muscoveys having any issues at all. They didn't hang out together either for that matter. I think again it's an individual basis reaction more than anything. They certainly do get along in city parks. But I think the key here is making sure all the birds have plenty of room. I cringe when people ask, what's the minimum space I need? I try to stay well away from just enough room, as being crowded can bring out aggression in birds with each other and other species of birds. But as in your case, your not just keeping them all in a small pen with just enough room...!!! So you should be fine. I'm sure Ideal Poultry's geese are comparable to Metzers' so whatever your heart desires is where I would go. But for me personally, Metzers is big on waterfowl and do a great job enough for what I'm looking for. I know geese and ducks can be brooded together just fine as babies, as I've done that twice now with no issues. Only that, sheesh, ducks are so messy compared to the geese!

 

[Khota]

That's good to hear! They will definately have plenty of space to seperate if they decide that they truely don't like each other. My only worry with Ideal is that they have so many breeds of various birds that I find myself having a hard time believing they focus on making sure breeds look like well... what they should. The issue with ideal not having any pictures of their flocks also still worries me as well. Seems like an actual waterfowl breeder will definately be my best bet here, so metzer it is. (Metzer even has videos of their flocks, so at least I can see what I'm purchasing. Plus I've heard Metzer has some great customer service in the event of dead goslings/ducklings on arrival.)
Haha, are they? I honestly would've guessed that geese would be messier seeing as they're larger and grow faster.

 

[Khota]

Woah just looked at Metzer's website and they increased the prices on their sexed geese and updated their website.

 

[dpenning]

It looks like cackle has a good deal on pairs and trios of Embden Geese.
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/white-embden-geese-sexed.html

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

Metzers has expanded over time on breeds and they still run a LOT of birds and are about production rather than looks like a small time breeder who shows would be. But yeah, geese aren't cheap are they... maybe this will be the year I build a winter pen for them to live in instead of buying goslings every year. Great lawn mowers! My other reason for getting geese!

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

I just looked at the updated prices too...and about fell over...wow! prices are really going up!

 

[Khota]

Metzer runs quite a few birds but not quite as nearly as many as Ideal does haha
The price increase sure is surprising for me though, as they are quite the large increase! Especially for the females.

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

Metzer runs quite a few birds but not quite as nearly as many as Ideal does haha
The price increase sure is surprising for me though, as they are quite the large increase! Especially for the females.

yeah, that's a huge difference. In some breeds, the ganders are cheaper than straight run prices. This does totally change how I'm going to have to do an order if I want both sexes. No way do I want to pay the price they are charging for sexed birds versus what they are charging straight run.

 

[Khota]

Yeah it really is quite the difference! I can see why the females may be priced so high, seeing as most people want specifically females, but yeesh the prices sure are steep for a single bird!
I'm hoping they plan to edit and fix those prices, I've noticed that on the "Fancy Gosling" package that they have one of the prices set to "0.00" So I'm hoping the drastic price change isn't permanent and that the website is still in editing.