Does anyone know when molting season is?

[sillysister74]

I have so many white feathers around on the ground I could make another goose (Lord help me!!!)

 

[Goosehaven]

Mine are molting right now too. Lots and lots of feather on the ground

 

[sillysister74]

Great! I look outside and think I am going to see horrible carnage and everyone is as happy as can be, but slightly nekid

 

[bock]

Quote:

 

[Rosecomb-Ryan]

Mine are molting right now... My male has not ONE wing feather! One day he had them then I cleaned out their pool and went in for something and they had finished with their bath and it was like a white film over the top of the pool with whitish feathers! I thought something had to of killed them lol Its that time of year here!


Ryan

 

[grubbygirl]

My geese are definitely molting right now. Makes me wish there was a market for slightly-used goose feathers!

Do any of you provide extra care (nutritionally or otherwise) for your geese during the molting period?

 

[Kim65]

Yep, mine too. My little rescue girl was so rough looking when I brought her home, and her wing feathers were gone. She now has new white tips poking out of the old discolored feathers, and now my lavenders' feathers are everywhere.

It's fascinating how we live all over the country in different climates but our geese are all molting at the same time.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
Not really, migrating geese have always been ruled by the sun, tommorrow 6/21 is the Solstice when days in the Northern hemisphere stop growing longer and start getting shorter. Deep in their instincts geese know that they need a new set of feathers to get them ready for the migration South. Being domesticated or living in a year round climate does not change that. Only geese grown under artificial lights might excape the molt because they don't receive the clues from the sun.
On a practical note anyone that was planning on sending their goose to freezer camp, are going to have a tough time with pinfeathers up to late September.
On other practical levels it is a good time to start collecting down from your birds since it will be loose and you won't have to actually pluck it from their skin, just gently ease it out like you can do with a sheding cat or dog.
I used to pick up the decent looking large flight and tail feathers to sell to a local hobby shop who wholesaled them to other shops. They usually RETAIL for $0.50-1.00 each to people who want to use goose quils to write with, either the old fashioned way of dipping a cut quill into ink, or the new way of gluing a ball point refil inside the hollow quill. They are also in demand by people who paint fake fancy wood grain onto common wood, nothing else can produce the same effect.
If you just want to make the mess disappear set your mower to "mulch"and mow over them, the chopped up feathers are rich in nitrogen and take a while to break down so they make an excellent mid summer top dressing.

 

[[email protected]]

I was so excited to see that ya'll's feathers are e/where too, I kept meaning to ask, but of course got caught up in the 'cash crop' topic - great reading ;-0!
Very interesting that in MA and MN and WA, they are molting while in TX too - weird, what does molting entail? Do they loose big long feathers too, ya'll were saying that wing feathers were gone... mine still look normal, will they loose them all?? I sort of wish they would loose lots more since it's 100 degrees and I feel sorry for them, hence, we swimm a lot... j

 

[catnip]

They start with their wings. The large primary feathers fall out and then the smaller feathers after that. Pretty soon, more feathers start falling out and it sometimes it looks like the goose exploded in your yard.

I'm always amazed how fast the new feathers start coming in. You can really see it on the wings, big fat quills coming in on the wing edges. My geese get kinda subdued at moulting time. For a few weeks as they are growing new feathers in, they stay in the shade and don't go out too much.