geese cross breeds Embden x Landes possibility

[Miss Lydia]

Well they can be sneaky in their mating but I go by my ganders shrill mating call after it's done. I can tell right away when mating takes place. But to know which females he is mating with you'd have to be standing right there watching. Only way to know when she lays is to crack open the egg and look for the bulls eye that will tell you who is fertile and who isn't. And if you want to know who is laying what egg. You can use some food coloring and put it around the vent of your females they will have a colored egg the next time they lay. Just use a different color for each one. Works for finding out what duck is laying so probably work on geese too. That's great the gander has stopped picking on the female. This is a big change for them too being closed up so time and a larger area should help a lot. Good for you getting them set up. Let us know how it goes and when quarantine is over. Ganders can also just choose one mate and have nothing to do with the others. Usually 2 he'll mate but more than that sometimes just get ignored or run away from the flock. My gander never had more than 2 females and he mated them both.

 

[Eric Rosario]

I've seen today he was mating with one of the grays but not sure which one it was far away to recognize them. Again if he would stick to only the white one he is not going to mate with the grays.
cracking the egg and getting know that one was good is too late
coloured eggs that sounds interesting method, that would be a lot of stress for each female (any specie) that we could catch and mark.
as we have 3 landes and 1 emden based on the goslings we will which one is which one, till then we won't be sure which eggs belongs to which goose, is there any size difference between large and mediumsized goose egg? Someone told me that emden are not broody, landes were all 3 last year, so they could hatch all the eggs.
I was checking them today no signs of bullying, the female's feather looks less messy so it seems it helped them a lot.

 

[Eric Rosario]

checking them today, daily fresh green cabbage and apples, the gander was chasing the one mentioned away, however she looks much better (back to normal), but just a bit, not like chasing her around or biting her.

the other two regular looking landes seems to be ok for the gander, they were close.
we misstook her for gander as she showed signs of gander before (so 2+1) but she was female on the end, looking differently than the other two females. The new 2y gander was offered to us from breeder giving the 6y old female with him, as she would have nothing to do with the lonely female of this breed.

we have 4 females so i'm guessing we should see what's gonna happen, who will be laying, who's eggs are fertile. I'm thinking also once the females are broody the gander might takes more aggressive stance against this female, we will see and decide later.

looks like something is not quite right with this girl.

 

[Miss Lydia]

What are you seeing in that pic? They look a lot like French Toulouse to me but I know in different parts of the world they are other breeds we don't get here. They are beautiful geese. He may not ever take to 4 females although if she is the only one that doesn't go broody then she may become his favorite.
Do you also feed grain when they can't forage?

 

[Eric Rosario]

the very first pic with shows about the whiter/lighter version of that one specific goose when she was a baby, they are gray as tolouse but the Landes breed is a medium sized goose when tolouse is big heavy breed.

but nevermind we have more serious issue another case of avian influenza is around closer to us, so we need to take action, I've just spoke to my granny so we agreed that we will close them but need to separate the two white emdens from the gray landes.
as my i know the emdens lays about 10-12 eggs only but landes are able to lay about 80 eggs even till July.
i've tried to close them up for the night but they were pecking the grays (the white female did)
if they are not able to move outside and need to be closed up we will separate them keeping the emdens together (gander and goose) and the 3 gray landes females without gander.
i would say that if the mating season starsts for the emdens the gander is there for her.
the landes were mating already if they are about to lay eggs, or they may lay later.

not sure if we could avoid it and be safe keeping the around outside but we need to do everything possible to protect them. even then it is not guaranteed that we saved them.

anyway we dont need 4x10 golslings that's too much.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It that’s scary, yes keep them as safe as possible and go with your plan to separate. Sure hope it works and this will all be over soon

 

[Eric Rosario]

the larger cage with roof is ordered (should be delivered in like one week) for now we've put the previous one to the barn. we'cut the back of the cage so they can use it.
They seems be ok for now, no bullying around. we will monitor the behavior, actually whenever we give them something freshe (cabbage or apples) whites chase the greys away.
see the pics below, don't miss judge the black hole at the entrance there is darkgreen wire just less visible from distance. there is no open hole for birds to enter their area now.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Looks good!! Looks cold too! Do you know how long this Quarantine will be for?

 

[Eric Rosario]

yesterday we got sunny day, pipes were defrosted so we were able to fill their bathing tank, but today it was frozen, per forecast the only freezing day this week, but have to proceed.
we will check them of course each day and when I'm home I check them several times per day.
Quarantine should be like 40 days since the last case announced but there are still new cases so we don't know.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I hate this for you all. Part of our country is dealing with New Castle disease. They are trying to keep It contained.