Drowned goose heartbreak

[Iain Utah]

I have kept 30+ geese for over five years as a big free-range pet flock. My ratio is roughly 50/50 with a few extra girls. I have kiddy pools, big and little ponds and a 12 ft wide deep stream on my property, so plenty of water to breed in. I've never had a bird drown another bird, or even come close. I find it highly unlikely that your bird was drowned by one of its own group. More likely, a predator got it, possibly caused internal injuries, your bird fled to the "safety" of your water, and passed away there.

As for girls, you can get sexed female goslings from Metzer in the spring. They will love raising babies and then will have mates when the babies grow up.

I'm sorry for your losses.

 

[nightowl223]

There were no signs of predator attack, and we checked very closely for that. She wasn't much on flying, either, as she was a heavier breed (like the ganders), and they all used the ramp/steps to get in & out of the water. It had to have happened midday, as well, and there aren't any daytime predators that could get around our LGD or the other watchdogs here, not to mention that it's close enough to the house that we'd have heard any ruckus they'd make with any stray/strange animals that might show up.

I almost wish the evidence agreed with your hypothesis, but it just didn't. *shrug* I don't want to be argumentative, but there isn't really a way I can see it could have happened that way.

 

[nightowl223]

I do like the idea of buying sexed goslings, but don't know that company's quality levels. I'll check them out.

 

[nineallday00]

Hi i just wanted to write in to send my support as I just lost my favorite goose today. She was the most gentle goose that we had, never made a noise, was a great mother to our other geese and am so glad that her genes will live on. The last day with her we even decided to take a lot of pictures with our new baby lambs and my favorite goose. I am just absolutely distraught at her loss.

The reason i chose your thread was because our goose also did drown. Our pond is in the process of melting along the edges and the geese have been playing in it a bit. I had been a bit worried before about them but thought it would be ok they just have been so wanting to swim after a long winter. We searched today for hours around our entire place, completely confused as to what could possibly have happened, when we then thought about the pond and found her underneath the ice. Not sure if she got stuck there on her own or if a male held her down and she couldnt get out, but either way there was just not enough unfrozen water for her to flap her way out, or she might have panicked and swam under the ice in the middle.

I just am so upset and hope so much that I ever get another goose as nice as this one, but i have 14 other geese and have had lots more and im not sure i will ever have another one as nice as little gandalf.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Welcome to BYC

Gandalf sounded like 1 in a million so very sorry you lost her.