Goslings of 2014 Hatch-a-long

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for answering. I brought home a goose and a gander yesterday, but brought the goose back to the farm today. she was so scared that she would honk very loudly and run from us. she was an adult and also special needs. I knew before i got her that she was "messed up" but farmer told me something was wrong with her wings. after getting her home, i realized that she also had ??? if she were a human she would have had scoliosis. i dont know what kind of condition it is called in water fowl except a deformed rib cage. i would have kept her special needs or not if she was friendly. the male i brought home is about a month older than Forest and has a bad case of angel wing. I have already taped his wings. he still talks in gosling speak like forest. he is a little scared but i can tell will warm up and be a back yard pet in no time! We named him Oliver Snow =) I will post pics soon.

Wow, Andrea, sounds like you have started a rehab centre for problematic geese! Poor things.
You won´t be able to do anything about the wing now, just keep the feathers short so it doesn´t bother too much.
the terrified one will calm down, it´ll go by the others´ behaviour. Just give her time. Deformed rib cage? How? Her underneath, like a Toulouse? Or her back?

 

[livininbrazil]

Well, my Pilgrim-types have goslings, but I don´t know how many yet, and also, surprise, my other Normandy-type has hatched some out. I thought they were due next weekend, but I must have counted the weeks incorrectly. So, 4 geese with goslings! I´m really busy this weekend, so I won´t be able to spend much time with them until Monday. So, no pics yet.

 

[andreacroyle]

Wow, Andrea, sounds like you have started a rehab centre for problematic geese! Poor things.
You won´t be able to do anything about the wing now, just keep the feathers short so it doesn´t bother too much.
the terrified one will calm down, it´ll go by the others´ behaviour. Just give her time. Deformed rib cage? How? Her underneath, like a Toulouse? Or her back?

yes, I have also rehabbed 2 injured ducks (hit by car) and rescued one scovy duckling. =) my dogs are the same way. I seem to attract the (health wise) problematic animals.....or am attracted to... not sure.

i took back the deformed goose and only kept Oliver. She was nice and gentle and I agree she would have calmed down eventually, but I wouldnt have been able to keep her in good conscious without taking her to a vet right away. I cant afford to take on another vet bill for a special needs goose while I am saving my animal money so I can afford Forest's vet bill. Her deformity was on the top of her rib cage under her wing.I took pics of her but its hard to see it. I had to feel around to tell why the wing was sitting funny, her tail is also super crooked and she had one ?pouch? like a toulouse but it is only on the right side? i thought pouches were on both sides or one in the middle.

I also took back 3 scovies that like to attack Forest. I released the two adult feral drakes that had injuries, now that they are mended. they are happy back in their old ponds where they grew up.

I am down to a comfortable number of ducks (3 ducks 1 drake). Oliver is happy outside with the ducks and hopefully one day Forest and Oliver will like each other enough for her to have a normal goose life outside. .....Right now she is afraid of Oliver and tries to climb up my leg so I will pick her up!!

I agree with you about the angel wing and it being too late but I have taped it anyway just in case there is a chance. I taped Forest's angel wing for three weeks and it fixed the wing enough for her to tuck it in. If it doesnt work for Oliver, I will clip his feathers.

Here is a pic Oliver Snow! What breed does he look like? See the light gray spots on his back? underneath his wings on his rump is the prettiest light gray with white circles (the way lace winged wyandotte's are colored) I will take a closer pic of his spots. He is about 5 or 6 lbs but double the size of forest. i will hold him and take a pic so you can see his size. beside forest.


this is Forest stretching her wings. you cant tell in the photos but all that gray under her wings are very shiny and metallic! she doesnt look anything like the farmers geese. I wonder if farmer got eggs mixed up and my wonderful daughter bird isnt some other mixed breed goose. =)

 

[andreacroyle]

Magpies are very smart alright but the real killer here is the hooded(carrion) crow
They are bigger then magpies and Rooks

i dont think we have either one of those birds in florida. i have never seen them. farmer told me yesterday that she witnessed a bald eagle that stood close to 4 ftt high carry off one of her full grown muscovies while she was out there! the eagle wasnt afraid of her at all she tried to chase it and it stood its ground. she also said her friend down the road saw the eagle take one of her baby goats right out of the yard in front of her!!!

we have enough birds of pray to worry about for sure.

 

[andreacroyle]

The 7th egg didn´t make it. The gosling had its headin the wrong place, as it didn´t pip. It was wriggling well, and then we noticed it had stopped. I opened the egg, but too late, she was gone. Blood vessels still in the membrane, so she should have pipped internally, but her head was tucked right down in. Such a shame. I did candle earlier, and no sign of her bill...so I thought not quite ready, maybe this egg was laid a bit late, etc etc... I wish I´d not been busy with other things, but there you go.... It was another female. That would have been 5 girls, 2 boys. And 100% fertility.
Other eggs are making noises under the Pilgrims, so soon... more gozzies!

i think that is what happened with my duckling. its such a shame that happened to your goose. its so hard to tell when candling at that stage too. i love the pics!

 

[andreacroyle]

Sleepin´again..... funny baby!

OMG!! is she sticking her head in moms wing! so cute!!

 

[andreacroyle]

They're not related - but the Australian magpie can be taught to talk. When I was younger we had one that use to come and knock on the window, you opened the door and he would come around to the fridge and wait, when you opened the fridge door and pulled out the mince he would go outside and wait at the chair. Then when you sat down he would come and perch on your knee and accept all offerings - without snatching or stealing. He raised several years worth of offspring this way.

did you train it to do that? what is a mince? that is really cool!

 

[andreacroyle]

Since I've been caring for this magpie (member of crow family) for the last two weeks, I have a new appreciation for how smart they are.

How is it doing ?

 

[andreacroyle]

I had a scare last night. I went to lock up my geese and 1 of the African ladies was missing! I found her on the nest, but when I touched her she wouldn't move. I shook her body, and pushed on her neck, no reaction so I thought she was dead. I went into the house to grab a flash light and see if there was signs of predator attack on her and when the light hit her face she swung her head up very fast and hissed at me. I was so relieved. She had 2 dummy eggs that she rolled from new nests I build and an egg she laid (I had just collected the last eggs an hour before lockup, so she had to have recently laid it.) I am thinking she was going to try incubating and hatching some youngsters, lol. She refused to get off the nest until I picked her up and then she swatted me across the face and ran to the goose coop where the rest of the geese were calling for her. Today the 4 Africans are all fine, it was dark enough that I couldn't tell which African it was. but it scared the holy crap out of me.

That sounds really scary! maybe you can get some of those little solar powered yard lights. they just went on sale here.

 

[andreacroyle]

If that is the same farmer where you got forest from well then there must be something wrong there!

Same farmer , but the two geese came from two separate breeders at the farm swap meet. however she does feed all of her birds a local mill feed . the feed she buys is for game birds. I have given her the information I have found about the high amounts of protein in game bird feed and what that amount of protein does to our PET waterfowl let alone not being formulated for waterfowl. She informed me that she raises MEAT BIRDS. I have known this and still have chosen to get my birds from her. Her farm is very clean, the animals are treated very well, and they are nice. This is saying a lot since I have seen people sell animals out of the back of their car trunk in the midday sun at the farm swaps from an over crowded cat carrier. All in all, I do think Oliver Snow (which doesnt look anything like her ganders) probably got his angel wing from the high protein content in the meat bird feed. he seems very healthy besides that. He has light gray spots on his back.. I would like to know what breed you guys think he is. I honestly can not tell the different geese breeds apart. I just dont know enough about geese yet.
He still had his baby voice. His eyes are the exact color of Forest's (slate blue). I just posted pics in a different reply. I have to figure out how I did the multi reply thread thing that one time.