Geese, chickens, pool and visitors - match made in heaven?

[mominoz]

Depends on the goose. Some breeds seem to be "gentler" than others.During breeding season they do get terratorial around their nests or mates. We had a goose that would hide under the porch and go after certain people.....Taught our youngest child to carry a plastic plumbing pipe (made him feel safe). He wasn't allowed to hit the goose, but we showed him how to use it as a 'spacer" When company came we would put him in the back yard.
Now that I have geese again, I have found they judge you by your feet & voice. If I wear "unusal shoes" they will go after my shoes .(I usually wear tan shoes outdoors, occasionally black boots. But heaven forbid if I wear my red or blue crocs!!!!!Funny. If I talk to them or call their bluff, they back off.(This is going into their night cage with food).
It is the gander that was 'really friendly as a baby" that I have the most trouble with. I have 4 tufted buffs now. And his wife who was setting last year. The other pair are less assertive. They will chase my Runners if the runners saunter in to their half of the aviary when I leave the gates open in the daytime. I'd say they are somewhat territorial about their feeding and nesting areas.

 

[mangobingo]

Actually one of my earliest memories is of my Grandma locking my sister and me in the house because one of the geese had escaped from its pen. My Grandma had a scar on her leg from where a goose had bitten her once, which is probably where I get this idea of geese being kind of fierce. Anyway, what I'm taking away from all this is that it very much depends on the breed of goose and - especially - on the individual goose within the breed. Lots to think about...

Btw that thing about the shoes - LMAO!

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
I hope not, but they can kill a swan, so a small child would be in great danger. The male to the left is about ready to attack in the picture. With babies they are really a bird that you don't want to deal with. They are a domestic goose and they are for sale in all areas of the US......just a heads up.

 

[Miss Lydia]

fowlman are those Egyptians? they are beautiful. And those babies...

 

[dreamcatcherarabians]

Quote:
I love my geese! Get them as babies and hand raise them so that they learn to like people. I taught mine to swim in the bathtub and my husband taught them to swim in our stock pond. If you let them go swimming in your pool you will have a BLAST! I play with mine a lot and we 'goose box' so my arms tend to get bruised pretty good, enough that I wear long sleeves to town LOL! But they can be very gentle too. I had a pretty severe foot injury and couldn't wear shoes for about 6 months. They'd peck the heck out of my good foot and never came near the injured one. The gander tells the barn cat to 'SCAT' when he's on my lap and then climbs up himself. The female is a little more shy. The UPS guy and the Postman leave packages at the gate, won't come down the driveway because they are afraid, but my friends think they're a howl and when they get stalked they just back the geese down and no one has gotten more than an occasional peck on their shoe. They do poo everywhere, but then again, my free range chickens don't exactly use the cat box either

. It's a toss up as to who messes up the front porch the most. My geese and chickens get along fine and they all keep the barn cats in line. They like to steal the cats' food.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
yes, they are Egyptians and yes they are beautiful, but they can be pretty aggressive. I have 20 of them here.

Walt

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
I agree. Small children should never be left alone with animals. Still, I've heard lots of stories about geese scaring small children (and big children, and adults), but I've never heard any about geese hurting people, except for small bruises and blood blisters.really? If a goose gets a good hold on someone (usually their clothing) and starts floging you with their wings the bruising can be quite extensive, mine put a meter reader out of work for a week. The pictures he showed to the animal control officer of his legs were enough to get my geese classed as dangerous animals which must either be confined or put down. That ended the free ranging of my geese. I had put up a sign warning that the geese might attack so I only ended up paying half of his lost wages and his insurance picked up the rest because he ignored the sign and thought it was some kind of joke. I put up the sign because the geese would attack the garbage man until he got smart and threw them a hand full of goose pellets that I kept in a container by the road just for his use. He would stop at the road and get a hand full, drive down and throw the pellets and dump the container in the truck and make his getaway! he was a farm boy and thought it was fun and a break from his boring job. The meter reader was a city boy and actually thought he was attacked by a emu.
As for children they would visit and want to see the 'duckies' the ducks would run and hide and the geese would stand their ground. The kid would extend his hand and the goose would take a little taste. never hard enough to cause a blood blister but the the kid would be shocked that 'duckies' would bite. ~gd

Quote:
Really? I have a dream of opening a spa: "Swimming with Geese". I mean, since the dolphin thing was such a hit...

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
I had forgot about the shoe thing but it was very true with my geese too, Also they would get upset if I wore a hat! (I don't usually but once I started to go bald I needed some protection....~gd)

 

[Miss Lydia]

I almost lost the top of my lip to my goose. I wasn't paying attention to where he was and stooped down to remove some boards I had put up to keep the chicks in their side of the yard ....when out of nowhere comes my gander to bite me, boy did that hurt. I have always hand feed him and he's very gentle taking food from me but he can put a hurting on ya in a split second. It's quite funny how many people are afraid of geese, they have a bad reputation. My dogs hate him since he has nipped them so much on the behind.

 

[mangobingo]

Miss Lydia, when we first got our chickens we were SO excited! We were hanging around them in the evening, watching them go into the coop for the night, when one of them, Delia, flew up on my bf's shoulder. So cute! But then she looked down, and he looked up, and she pecked him right in the eyeball. Poor boy didn't even get chance to blink before Delia's beak hit. Obviously, it wasn't deliberate like your goose's lip biting, but it just goes to show that even sweet and gentle things can be a bit of a hazard at times!

dreamcatcherarabians - don't they, er, crap in your pool when you swim with them??