Goose lovers – please help!!

[Marty1876]

I hope they will too for you Celtic. I know how hard you work, and how deeply passionate you are about breeding the most perfect birds possible. I could certainly think of worse things to focus your efforts on other than family and birds. BTW, how is everyone? DH, little man?

I know I'd still rather have adult trio or pair of muscoveys than brood just a few ducklings. Thats just too much mess for too little reward. I'd be ok with 6 and 6 of the chicks though. I have a brown, tan, and white egg basket from chickens right now. I really need those darks and blues!

I'm selling off some ducks now. I'm getting tired of feeding them every winter. Think I'll just keep my best girls and boys from the khakis (maybe 2 trios) and one trio with the anconas, pekings, and tan runners. A bakers dozen (with Lucky the loan giant peking) should be great with the geese (11) chickens(9), turkeys(7) (although some will be disappearing in Novemeber) and 2 trios of quail might make winter chores tolerable. I'm guessing after a couple of mild winters its gonna be a rough one.

 

[Iain Utah]

Marty & Lydia, thank you for the compliments. They are both very sweet. Chicory is especially social and always seems to get people to pay attention to him the most. The only geese I still hand feed are my special needs group. The rest are "big kids" now and can eat food from the bowl/ground.

Celtic, that's a lot of coming and going at your post office! Hope everyone's travels are safe and uneventful!

 

[Iain Utah]

I love my muscovy girls!! There is a glut of them in my local market... trying really hard to not look at the ads... I am afraid I may find myself buying a few more. Maybe once all the geese are placed, I will treat myself to a couple more.

 

[Marty1876]

Iain, you definately desearve more ducks in your life. Mine are still very dear to me, and close to my heart. I wouldn't get rid of any, but as you well understand, too many is just too many. Besides, I'm getting tired of the color brown.

 

[Iain Utah]

I love all of my ducks, but I definitely prefer the muscovy breed. Plus, they come in really neat colors. Not sure if you ever saw a pic of my girls? They are blue fawn.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Thanks Marty I don't believe in breeding inferior birds together. Ben using good birds you aren't guaranteed good results, but it's a better chance than two birds with lots of faults. Kind of the same principle of not breeding smooth to smooth Sebbies.

 

[psue]

When I let the gang out today they went to the far side of the yard ... Napoleon hollered at them... and they ALL CAME RUNNING BACK!!! Turkey's, ducks and geese! It was a wonderful sight

.

I love all of my ducks, but I definitely prefer the muscovy breed. Plus, they come in really neat colors. Not sure if you ever saw a pic of my girls? They are blue fawn.

and I usually dont care for the looks of "scovies"

I hope they will too for you Celtic. I know how hard you work, and how deeply passionate you are about breeding the most perfect birds possible. I could certainly think of worse things to focus your efforts on other than family and birds. BTW, how is everyone? DH, little man?

I know I'd still rather have adult trio or pair of muscoveys than brood just a few ducklings. Thats just too much mess for too little reward. I'd be ok with 6 and 6 of the chicks though. I have a brown, tan, and white egg basket from chickens right now. I really need those darks and blues!

I'm selling off some ducks now. I'm getting tired of feeding them every winter. Think I'll just keep my best girls and boys from the khakis (maybe 2 trios) and one trio with the anconas, pekings, and tan runners. A bakers dozen (with Lucky the loan giant peking) should be great with the geese (11) chickens(9), turkeys(7) (although some will be disappearing in Novemeber) and 2 trios of quail might make winter chores tolerable. I'm guessing after a couple of mild winters its gonna be a rough one.

wonder if I could sneak a pair of marans into Marty's box

 

[Iain Utah]

Paulla, that is cute!! Hope they integrate into your group quickly so they can enjoy running with a flock again. Thanks for the compliment. I feel the same way about scovies.

 

[Lupa Duende]

This thread has been quite a read! It is good to know that so many of you out there stepped up and helped IainUtah with his goose rescue. Good work to all of you.

Within this community, does anyone have an (in)complete list of palmiped rescues? I know of duckrescue.com but nothing else. I would especially be interested in information that is Canadian or involved sending birds North into Canada but my guess is that you BYC people know the major rescue/rehabbers and perhaps could make an information thread about the different groups.

For example, could I adopt some of Iain's geese? I am not prepared, and take heed of CelticOaks advise to learn about geese first, but eventually I will be ready. What are all of these laws and regulations about transporting birds across state lines? Were these temporary restrictions owing to avian flu fears or are they really concrete?

Thanks in advance

 

[Iain Utah]

Lupa, rescue organizations for waterfowl are few and far between in the United States. The two biggest names are Farm Sanctuary (who was overwhelmed this summer and could not help) and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, who made a policy decision this year to only putting their efforts & money for rescuing dogs/cats now. It seems like there are a bunch of rescue organizations on the local level when you surf the internet. However, every place I contacted in California and Utah, with the exception of one local place to me, could not help. It is up to individuals, like myself, to not turn a blind eye to a bad situation when it is staring you in the face and do whatever you can to help the animals. While I do not make it a habit of doing large scale rescues, over the years I have done what I could to help animals, and this summer I felt I was in a position to help these geese. So I did.

As for shipping, the shipper needs to be NPIP certified (national poultry improvement plan governed by each state's department of agriculture) or have current health exams/required testing (by receiving state) on the birds for transporting across state lines. There is another separate permit for shipping out of the country (which I do not have).