geese cross breeds Embden x Landes possibility

[Eric Rosario]

ok. so after several days here are some findings. We have to remove the one bullied goose from the flock, it is in the cage next to the others so they are close to each other but separated.

the rest of the flock white gander white female and two gray females are all ok and calmed down now, no pecking for food etc.

the removed is ok too, she is eating without any fear now.

BUT! what is goin on? let's put this togethere:
from the goslings my 75years old neighbour lady told me it is he, per the features, and later too. my grand parents too all of 'em they are not sure it looks like gander.

we had in January 2019 6 geese one alpha male, two side males were chased away by alpha, two females and one unidentified lighter one. some breeders told me it is he but it's passive and can be dominant once the alpha is gone, so we removed all 3 ganders to let this one awake. and it did. it was broody siting in the nest on eggs, so wa stayed without gander with only few fertilized eggs and the rest were empty. two goslings hatched.

2019 we got 3 geese females and no gander. I finally was able to find desired gander Emden with his mate, we put them together and everything was fine, the gander made up his flock together until now.

gander mated with the grey females, but maybe not with the lighter one, and once i have seen the lighter one was on the top of the greyish. ok maybe something strange.

but now the gander is chasing her/him away like the alha did last year.

so what is this? is it he or she ? i have no idea after all, i'm curious if she lays any eggs as she is alone, but on the other hand if it is a gander the white gander should fight it already and gander is not broody?

i would say autopsy would tell us more, but it will be too late.

any thoughts?

 

[Miss Lydia]

When does egg laying begin where you are? here its usually March. I'd let her/him live like you have them set up for now. That way shouldn't be long for you to know sex. She'll still lay even if not mating if a female.

 

[Eric Rosario]

I bought them on 31st May 2018 as several days old, so in February 2019 they were less than one year old when we found the nest with first eggs. In our area geese usually start laying in february and should be broody in March so starting April babies should be here.

 

[Eric Rosario]

hello again, as was mentioned we had to remove the one goose female from the flock to separate cage keeping her close to the rest of the flock. after nearly 2 weeks now suddenly from one day to another the remainig two grey females got bullied by the gander and embden female too. So we put the 3 greys together to the other cage, its small for now but they seems to be at least ok with their own small pool.
we are keeping the embden male and female now in the original bigger cage with the barn as per the words from the original owner she should be laying her eggs by the end of february and should be only like 15 eggs. She might be broody too. as the Embdens are more rare breed regardless of their behaviour against the greys we would need to ensure that the embden female got everything to lay hatchable eggs.
Landes as they are laying more eggs we have time to let them mate even later once the emden could be broody and sitting on her eggs.
not sure why the male started to behave like this even to the rest of the greys, maybe he want to ensure his original female the best conditions?

last year (first year) all our 3 ladies were able to cooperate with their nests and went broody nearl at the same time. seems 4th elder lady is not that cooperative with them.

 

[Eric Rosario]

seems the avian influenza is over and we released our geese and ducks back to open area.
we have 24 eggs from geese already and i suppose all are from the gray females only, no eggs from the embden female so far, she was alone with the gander for like last two weeks and no egg so far.
now they are free again walking around, and their behavior is still weird, when i gave them cabbage as usually every morning to get something fresh extra each day, the gander chased the light grey and torn a bunch of feathers from her body, the same day i've seen him mating with the same female, however it was not sucessful that one specific mating.
so what is his problem? he is again regularly mating with the gray females when he was chasing them away when they were enclosed, i would say it was due to stress from being closed up.
from all those eggs we dont know which are fertilized and which are not, therefore we dont need 40 goslings anyway.
and we have not seen the gander mating with the emden female nor she is laying eggs. i know it should be by the ende of February and this might be delayed due to the complications that they were closed.

 

[Miss Lydia]

And your positive the white Embden is a female? Also great news the scare of the avian flu is over. I’m sure you all are relieved and flocks can go back to normal life. Geese breeding just started up here. As for your ganders behavior maybe he just doesn’t want that many female. Since geese mate for life does he have a favorite? Most here will only keep Trio of geese because 2 is about all a gander will accept. Might be different with other breed of geese but I’d say that might be one of the reasons he’s yanking out feathers. @Iain Utah may have better knowledge than me she keeps more than I, I only have a pair.

 

[Eric Rosario]

we are sure that both embdens are male and female, we got them from a breeder she used to be broody too, and their behavior is totally different. and yes i've heared about mating for life and as he still has his favourite female as they were bought as pair, he maybe just hardly accepts addtional females. we actually wanted just one gander but breeder offered us the mature couple instead of young as he was not sure about the gosling's gender (only one hatched)
i read about that the bigger is the breed of geese the less females per one gander, so it should be 1+2 and it is 1+4 currently. but we don't know which female to remove as everyone of them got their values for us.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I understand are you raising goslings for sale or for food for your family? One female should sit 8-9 eggs so maybe have the older pair together and the young gander with the other females. See I am not sure on this since I only have a pair. But @servpolice is another experienced breeder. And @Gray Farms . Not sure maybe @MasterOfClucker don't know if any of these members can help but worth tagging.

 

[Eric Rosario]

we have only one gander now as we want to mix the breeds, that was mentioned in this post on the start.
the breeder offered us his couple as he messed up the eggs in incubator last year and he got several animals and he is elderly, so he offered us the gander he is two years old but he asked if we would like to take the female too as she would be alone and he would not know what to do with her. so we took em both as the pure specie embden would be valuable for further breeds and sales. the mixed breeds of embden and landes should be different size and these should be used as food for our family, we are not selling the processed geese to anyone.
we considered to sell goslings or the emdens for further breeding.
we don't need to have 30-40 goslings, so if there will be 10-12 from all four females that is more than enough, in case of many goslings we are forced to sell them in like one month of their age we would not be able to raise and keep that many large animals with our ducks and chickens.
we were thinking about that we will see which female and how many golsings what kind of goslings we are going to get before remowing any from these current females.

 

[Isaac 0]

Sorry, if i ask already asked questions, lots of info to read here. From my experience, Males will pick their favorites(1-3) and may attack or chase away other females, especially during the breeding season. If your gander is doing such things to the other females, I suggest you either get rid of the victim females or separate them into there own pen, seems like your gander is pretty set on his ways and is not going to change. Like @Miss Lydia said, most people including myself, keep geese in either a pair or trio. I would not let him pull the poor female's feathers for too long, something should be done soon before she gets seriously hurt. You should be able to hatch plenty of goslings with a trio or pair.

How much space do your geese have during the day and at night? Do you have a source of water for them to mate in?