Gander tried to drown/mate a gosling?!

[tzipporah]

I caught one of my 1 yr old ganders (I have two) standing on a 4wk old gosling in the kiddie pool. All the other geese were honking like crazy which alerted me to the situation. The gosling (all my goslings are females and integrated into the flock since 2wks old) was shook up and a bit bedraggled but ok. This is mid-summer not mating season but it looked for all the world like he was trying to mate this little gosling. I have 2adult ganders ,1adult goose, 1gosling 12wks and 3 female goslings 4wks old. They have two pools and two buckets and nearly two acres and are generally very content. WHAT is going on?

 

[casportpony]

@Miss Lydia, @oldhenlikesdogs, @jtn42248, and @Pyxis might be able to help.

 

[servpolice]

Males will attempt to mate any time of the year with their hormones being the highest in spring. Fresh clean water builds up a ganders hormones to mate as I've noticed

He was attempting to mate with the gosling and the gosling was trying to escape as the male got a grip of the gosling.

The gosling got super wet and tired by the sounds of it and couldn't jump out of the pool.

Geese tend to flock around and honk loud when mating happens, another goose is bullied, see people/animals/predators or when a fight breaks out.

I would separate the babies from the adults until they're a bit older because it will happen again and you might up with an unfortunate loss

Separate them but still allow them to see eachother to avoid future complications.

 

[Viksceeks]

I would separate too. I had muscovy ducks, and a drake mounted 2 young ducks and broke their backs

 

[PirateGirl]

Unfortunately, males can be rough and don't seem to discriminate by age or size. My drake almost did the same with a 4 week duckling. I happened to be standing there and could intervene, they haven't been together since. Unfortunately you may just have to give the babies more time to grow

 

[tzipporah]

Inconvenient but an easy choice to move the goslings for now.
thanks for your insight.

 

[PirateGirl]

Inconvenient but an easy choice to move the goslings for now.
thanks for your insight.

I was disappointed too. I really thought as long as mama was around for protection that everyone could play nice, but I guess it doesn't always work out that way.

 

[sourland]

Good move on separating the goslings. Young gander, perhaps without a mate, riding a testosterone high - drowning of the gosling was a real possibility.