do male geese 'protect' the ladies on a nest??

[spish]

i have 2 geese and have been getting 1 egg per day for the past 10 days. in the hope i have a couple i left a few eggs in the nest in the hope the layer goes broody. she has!!!

shes been on the nest the whole day, i thought id go back and slip some more eggs under her (shes only on 3) but the other goose wont let me near the house.

could this mean i DO have a couple and the one protecting the house is the man? or do female geese protect their broody friends too??

 

[BlackBart]

My male goose sort of protected the nesting female. But he is not much of a match against a predator at night so we locked them both in at night.

 

[cracking up]

I have two females and a male. He just hangs out with whoever isn't on the nest. If you only have two they'll hang out together no matter what the sex. At night my male has never wanted to stay with the female if she is broody.

 

[JordanFamily]

I have a Sebastopol gander that has three girls he mates with but does protect his favorite while she is sitting in her nest... She and him were alone for their first year so I think they have more of a bond even though he does mate with the other girls to... Now my other pens with males that are in with their girls tend to just hang out and may sometimes guard a favorite female but not as consistent as the first pair I mentioned...

 

[Thomasturkey]

have many breeds together. My girls always let me take there eggs for me to hatch. I can check under them at any time. The males all love me and could care less what I do.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Yes. Here is a video of the Pilgrims we had - female on nest, male in background.

 

[sourland]

Many ganders will attempt to protect their primary mate; however, understand that a gander is no match for most predators and you should protect the nest site.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

I have a pair of Toulouse and my lady has 10 eggs in her nest. For the most part, my gander has always been protective of his mate even before they started mating. my gander did not mind me being around their pool while they were in there mating nor did he mind me checking out the nest of eggs before she started sitting but now that she has gone broody, the gander will not let me anywhere near the nest and goes into this huge hissing fest when I come any where near the female and her nest. He has never been aggressive towards me, but now I have to walk out of their quarters walking backwards to keep him from attacking me!! I had made a huge lean to shelter for her to nest in, but she chose another location. This is my first experience with hatching out goslings and I am very excited for them to hatch and my gander to stop assaulting me.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
I would expect the gander to be protective of the goslings if he was protective of the nest. Sometimes they are so proud of the goslings that they will bring them over to "their people" to show off. You want to be on your best behavior if this does happen. One alarm squak from a gosling will bring both parents to teach you to show some respect. LOL

 

[Shiloh Acres]

LOL I can't wait. My little flock has been extremely protective lately.

I have I think now FOUR geese laying in the same nest. And I think it's broody time. For a while now they've taken turns setting on the nest at night, now they carry day shifts too. I have once seen two on the huge nest at once.

One of my ganders not only protects the goose and nest, he also oversees shift changes sometimes. I didn't see what led up to it, but he escorted a goose to the nest where another goose was setting, and tweaked the setting goose to get her off so the new one could get on.

I sure hope they know what they are doing. I really need some goslings this year!