Gander interrupted during mating

[brucelambert]

I have three white Chinese (Gander and 2 geese) and a brown Chinese goose in the same pen. The gander is fertile, as the brown Chinese hatched two goslings yesterday. All of these geese are a year old.

The real question is...while the gander is breeding the one Chinese goose who is actively laying eggs, they are interrupted during the act of mating by the other Chinese goose, who comes between the mating pair and than mounts the goose after pushing the gander aside. (The gander seems to only breed when I actively am refilling the wading pools., so I doubt this has happened at other times of the day..) The aggressive goose holds mating goose down in the wading pool (I don't know how long she will stay in this dominate position, as I have separated them a few times in the past). The other goose is not laying eggs or is breeding.

So.. my question:
1. should she be separated and put with another flock (I have a pair of African's that I am trying to get started, but they aren't even going to the movies yet), but this mess up the dynamic of the gander, as the "bully is his favorite",
2. should I just let this go until next year,
3. is there something else I am missing concerning this one goose's behavior?

 

[Starfire669]

Are you sure the bully goose is female?

 

[RURU]

None of my females act like that. Only ganders act that way while another gander is breeding. So you might rethink that on female to gander...

 

[brucelambert]

Fairly new to geese (a few months at this) but I grew up on a broodmare farm. We always had a few boss mares, who would fight "lesser" mares and would charge the stallion as he was teasing or even trying to mount them. (That was always a lot fun, handling a stallion while a couple of mares were kicking and biting each other...) I did not know if Geese had the same behavior.

I attached a few pictures of the geese so you can see the setup... The gander is looking at the camera, while the other two are the geese. The one on the left seems to be the boss.



A second shot, with the geese getting between me and the brown Chinese that hatched two goslings on Wednesday, but is still sitting on a few eggs. Will probably push the brown Chinese off the nest next week if nothing happens with the remaining eggs and candle them to see if the were fertilized. The ongoing drama you get with geese- I tell my daughter its like having teenage girls in high school all over again...

Anyway, not being a goose expert, but the two in the back don't look like ganders. Am I missing something?