Geese behavior?

[Shannon 81]

I appreciate the reply! Very informative. I guess we’ll wait for eggs

They’ve bonded with me and want to keep me all to themselves? I knew I was a Disney princess.. just a violent one, I guess. But in all seriousness, I’ll have my husband be the one to give them their veggie snacks for a while. Hes enormous himself (6’8) so he’s big enough to cuddle them anyway.. I always get beat up by them when I try to catch them.. their wings are just enormous

I have noticed they’ve started hissing a lot. I just thought it was because they aren’t accustomed to me coming outside bundled up in jackets. Maybe they’re just hormonal nutcases.. I can relate with that now and then. Poor ladies.

I read about the differences between males and females and I think I’d need more of a sample size to be able to actually tell anything.. The smaller one is the one acting out of pocket. I read you can sex then by color as babies? She was lighter as a baby where her big sister was a dark baby with a little cape.. I think I have pictures of them as babies, idk if that helps anyone with more experience looking at geese, lemme see.

When we got our embden geese we were told that the bright yellow babies were male and the ones that were darker were female. This was true for our four. Now that they are grown, the males are significantly larger than the females, legs are thicker boned as well. They also seem to be a little more outgoing. Hope this helps!

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Last season I had only 2 pilgrim females. Even though it’s obviously two females since they are gray and not white, everyone thought my female was a male. She constantly mounted her sister. She would run up to me and bite me when she saw me outside. When I knelt down and pushed her head away from me, she was all snuggly and adorable. It was wonderful, and it was horrible. She is a mean aggressive goose to last years new babies. She has to live with the chickens for now but will shortly be moved somewhere. We are at a loss as to where. She loves the chickens, in particular the rooster. I know she would kill him trying to mate him. I love my chickens too, so something has to change.

 

[Marieaa70]

I have two female (supposedly.. they were straight run and the bird lady did her best to pick ones she thought were females) Emden geese. We got them as babies from the local feed store.. they aren’t quite a year yet. Raised them indoors which was absolutely awful but I really wanted them to be friendly. Which worked! For me. They’re pretty stand offish with my husband, but they don’t outright attack so I assume it’s a healthy enough relationship. They love me tho. Every time I go outside they just about fly over to see me.. screaming at the top of their lungs. They follow me around and scream the whole time I’m outside. If I bend over they’ll get in my face and tell me all kinds of things very loudly. They don’t have names.. I’ve always just called them Gooses (I know it’s geese but gooses is more fun to say.. I called them ducks when they were yellow. Be ungovernable.). Ones bigger and ones smaller. The smaller one was shy growing up and the bigger one was super friendly.. they switched personalities tho. The small one will let me pet her.. the bigger one is less happy about being touched, but still sings me the songs of her people as loud as she can. I’ve even noticed they hold grudges for me. I had to (gently) pin the rooster (known as Ronald) down to explain that attacking me isn’t acceptable behavior (which worked, surprisingly) and since then the geese bully him (they were scared of him quite literally their whole lives until moments prior to the attitude adjustment).. I thought this was a fluke until I had to try to grab our pug (who goes by many names.. Peach. Squeech. Pugness. Pugniss Everpoo. But most frequently she’s simply.. Pug.) as she flew passed me because she likes to zip around super fast and make the rooster chase her.. he’s not playing and always ends up kicking her in the butt (literally). Which is always a crisis.. pugs are very dramatic. So I tried to snatch her up.. I missed, but the geese saw that and took matters into their own hands (wings? Feathers?) immediately. They ganged up on the poor pug and about had her pinned to the ground before I made it across the yard to scoop her up. They have beat her up a few more times since then. Which makes me sad. I tried to explain it to them.. but they will have none of it. They’ll only leave her alone if she’s on my lap and even then I can see them struggling with wanting to get her but also not wanting to attack me. I would appreciate any ideas on how to call off my accidental goose attack squad. I’m scared to do any experiments because they just seem so much more intelligent than the chickens and they’re just about bigger than me so if they turn against me.. I’ll be goose food.

My husband says I’m biased and I just can’t see how mean they really are and play favorites (but I think he’s just jealous that I have a small goose army and he doesn’t).

We got them as guard geese.. a job they take very seriously. They’re the fun police. No running of any kind is allowed. No loud noises either. If they see the rooster have his way with any ladies? They’ll intervene. Hen fight? The geese are there. They hate the dog getting zoomies and perform entire rage filled charges with their wings out and heads low to the ground. They don’t do anything unprovoked tho. As long as everyone is quiet and they aren’t on the “corrected by mom that one time” list.. no one gets messed with. Is this a goose thing? Are they usually very no nonsense law enforcement?

Another question about them is this: I was outside earlier filling their water and they ran up to me like they always do.. lots of injustice to honk about (likely complaining that the grass is dead) and started nibble tickling me.. seems to be a greeting or like.. checking on me? But this time, the small goose was trying to like.. run up me? I thought she wanted on my lap (I’m crouched at the spigot) so I kinda tried to oblige as opposed to spilling all the water.. she’s way too big so I figured it wouldn’t work so she’d quit, but then she was trying to climb up further! I have claw marks on my left arm, chest, and shoulder (I washed all that and put a little antibiotic ointment on the spot that looked like the skin broke.. gave me claw bruises). She didn’t stop when she failed either. She kept trying! I had to just not fill the water all the way so I could stand up. She was essentially bodying me while I was trying to gently block her. It all happened pretty fast, but she wasn’t biting me.. her sister didn’t join in either. So I don’t think it was like.. an attack. Super weird..

I know they’re animals and we can’t truly know what the deal is.. but if any goose whisperers have any ideas, I’m all ears and claw marks.

I have attached pictures of the various characters in the story as reference (as well as just my favorite picture of a couple of our hens) Tho it seems I don’t have a decent picture of both geese for some reason..

They are acting like normal geese, sound like you got a M & F , on the size, When you see them mount one day you will know for sure , Geese are the top dog in the yard, and they don t let any forget that ,

 

[Marieaa70]

Last season I had only 2 pilgrim females. Even though it’s obviously two females since they are gray and not white, everyone thought my female was a male. She constantly mounted her sister. She would run up to me and bite me when she saw me outside. When I knelt down and pushed her head away from me, she was all snuggly and adorable. It was wonderful, and it was horrible. She is a mean aggressive goose to last years new babies. She has to live with the chickens for now but will shortly be moved somewhere. We are at a loss as to where. She loves the chickens, in particular the rooster. I know she would kill him trying to mate him. I love my chickens too, so something has to change.

Sound s like a male to me , When he mounts and get s off if your fast enough look to see if he s got a penis , it takes a sec to put back in, . If you put a goose with hens they will keep them safe from Arial birds or raccoons or any pest, Guard geese are wonderful to have

 

[Gazergirlstar]

i really think its two boys, if i can i will post a pic of my boy and show you but they are so cute , im glad the have bonded with you