Goslings of 2014 Hatch-a-long

[jtn42248]

serv Sam has been mating with Toots my Buff since she was 4 months old. Haven't seen any thing between him and Missy or Babe yet although Babe was biting his foot last week and he got out of the pool because of it.

Blame it on the weather.

 

[servpolice]

Interesting...... MissLydia nearly has all colours of geese but not Lavender :/
(but if sam mates with missy and babe then you can get Lavender males) I have no clue what the results are with the buff clour when crossed with a white .
We will find out next spring!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Interesting...... MissLydia nearly has all colours of geese but not Lavender

(but if sam mates with missy and babe then you can get Lavender males) I have no clue what the results are with the buff clour when crossed with a white .
We will find out next spring!

If I let those geese hatch goslings serv I'd probably have to move to Ireland my dh would disown me. It sure would be interesting to see what colors come out of the unions though.

 

[servpolice]

You should breed them! Just sell most of them.

 

[livininbrazil]

Well these is probably the last pics of goslings this year....
My mixed-breeds with pied babies. The mom of these babies isn´t in the pic, but she´s a saddleback. The two ganders have taken over the babies and mom is pushed into the background. But babies are doing fine. Mum´s never far away.
Here are the two young ganders with the female of one of them that didn´t manage to hatch anything, along with 4 goslings:

 

[jtn42248]

Well these is probably the last pics of goslings this year....
My mixed-breeds with pied babies. The mom of these babies isn´t in the pic, but she´s a saddleback. The two ganders have taken over the babies and mom is pushed into the background. But babies are doing fine. Mum´s never far away.
Here are the two young ganders with the female of one of them that didn´t manage to hatch anything, along with 4 goslings:

Beautiful little ones. Looks like nice weather too. Things are chilling of here in the US.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Well these is probably the last pics of goslings this year....
My mixed-breeds with pied babies. The mom of these babies isn´t in the pic, but she´s a saddleback. The two ganders have taken over the babies and mom is pushed into the background. But babies are doing fine. Mum´s never far away.
Here are the two young ganders with the female of one of them that didn´t manage to hatch anything, along with 4 goslings:

Beautiful geese and goslings livin. jtn after yesterdays low of 15 and more to come Brazil is looking awfully inviting.

 

[andreacroyle]

Go ahead and say it. She is a TRAMP!!!!! All of my Cayuga females are tramps as well. My two drakes are not at all interested, it is after all cold out, but the 14 females are all ready to pretend they are in the tropics and go to town...maybe it is a Cayuga thing but I am almost at the point of taking the drakes to a pen of their own so they can stop running away from females.

She also does a weird thing with her head when shes talking to the boys. My son thinks there is something wrong with her because it is so different from the scovies. Scovies move their heads around like they are dancing. The cayuga looks like...well i guess that she doesnt know how to dance. she is a healthy duck but her body movements when she is talking to the boys remind me of someone that has neurological problems. It makes more sense now. i didnt realize that personalities were so different depending on breed. The cayuga boy and swedish/cayuga X boy just quack a lot and stick together. they arent interested in mating at all.

The Polar Express is on its way.. I will have to take out water every couple of hours and make sure they all have plenty of heat enhancing food to eat but they should be o.k.

My 4 week old Bantams and 4 week old roosters are still upstairs in their brooders so,

What is heat enhancing food? My 3 obe bantams and two silkies live in my living room at night because it has been getting cold. everyone says that they are okay in 40 degree weather but they look cold so i bring them in. i kind of like having a indoor rooster. its entertaining! we cant afford to build anything more permanent so my mom gave us her old 10x20 green house. it has metal poles and a heavy canvas cover. we are lining it with chicken wire before we put the tarp on this weekend. it will be going down to 30 at night. i know everyone has much colder weather, but when your not used to it, 30 (with all the humidity in the air) seems super cold! the green house will do for the winter and then during the summer it will be a perfect safe house for Forest to free range. I dont leave her outside alone (free ranging) because she cant defend herself.

Andrea i wonder also but the foxes are so smart it can be hard.

I hope it all works out.

If they didn't have a light on they'd be sleeping.

OH really!! so I created the party!! it was pretty entertaining!

Babe looks a lot like a female there so i am sticking that babe is a girl! 90.9%!

Babe looks female to me. she looks exactly like Forest but much much bigger. Forest is the size of a muscovy hen.

I laid it down on the shaving an she had the best time touching it and rolling it around. lol Babe and Sam had already walked outside.

that is adorable! i didnt know that they did that.

I've only seen Sam look at an egg and kinds talk to it. lol

i didnt know they talked once they stopped their gosling chatter.

definitely my favourites.

after having all three (geese, ducks, chickens). I do like the geese most of all. they seems to be the most personable and fun to watch. the two i have always remind me of toddler humans. they are so curious and seem to have many more emotions than the ducks.
i havent figured out the chickens yet. i want to find a book on chicken behavior because they are so completely different than waterfowl.

@Miss Lydia how many eggs can a duck lay before it starts to hurt her system? my one (5 mth old) duck has laid an egg everyday for 3 weeks. wants nothing to do with the egg after she lays it.

Livin, who is that far back? the babies are sooo cute!! the sand there is a strange color. is it that color all over? is it more like clay or is it sand? why did the boys "take over" the goslings? do they not allow the mom to be near them?



i love this pic! all those little goose butts ! how cute!

Brazil is looking awfully inviting.

This is the only place I have ever had the desire to travel to.

 

[livininbrazil]

Beautiful little ones. Looks like nice weather too. Things are chilling of here in the US.

Beautiful geese and goslings livin. jtn after yesterdays low of 15 and more to come Brazil is looking awfully inviting.

I don´t know how you guys survive. You´re obviously made of very strong stuff.


@andreacroyle , chickens are certainly different to the waterfowl. I like my Brahmas (the little chick in the pic that you asked about is a 7/8ths Light Brahma), as they have gentle natures, but chickens are so much more work to keep them healthy, they pick up diseases so much easier, and are generally far less entertaining.

In the pic you see the soil. Neither clay nor sand. There are hardly any stones in it. It´s a strange soil that can go as hard as rock in the dry season. But it´s quite fertile, and actually holds a lot of moisture, so the plants and grass stay green even though it doesn´t rain for months. Quite amazing. This soil was the home of the Atlantic Rainforest before the people started chopping it down. The soil is the colour of the trees that tend to grow here... a lot of red wood, hence the name Brazil. It´s the name the portuguese gave to one of the trees here that has really red bark. Of course, as times goes by, the soil becomes the colour of the trees that decay in it.

The bare earth is because the geese are cropping the new shoots down to the ground, then the chickens come along and scratch it to death. No matter, there´s loads of it around. And it comes back really quickly, just shut the area off for a fortnight. As you can see, I need to get out there with the shears and cut the grass back. They have other areas to graze, too, with shorter grass, but they like to hang out under these trees.

The story of the goslings:
I paired one of these ganders with his saddleback auntie to produce pied goslings. She laid and sat on her eggs. Two yearling geese also laid some eggs, and I left them with an egg each to keep them happy. Time goes by... One egg was infertile, the goose eventually gave up on the nest. The other yearling goose hatched out a little gosling, but she squashed it when my hubby went too close with the mower. So I popped two of the saddleback goose´s eggs under her, as she´s such a little sweetie.

The older saddleback goose started to hatch out her eggs, but she started being very rough with the hatching babies, didn´t like them. Crazy bird, but she was like this last year, so I was prepared. I wonder if it´s because she´s imprinted. don´t know.
So, I gave the saddleback a couple of ceramic eggs to keep her happy, and took the 4 eggs indoors to get them hatched under the lamp. Once the babies were getting about fine, I gave the tiny goslings to the youngster who had squished her gosling, but I was sure it wouldn´t happen again.

So, there was the young goose doing really well with her adopted brood. For 2 weeks she was in a run with them, with the ganders getting all love-sick over the goslings from the other side of the fence. And the other female that hatched out nothing started to join herself to these 2 ganders. OK.

Once the goslings were 3 weeks old, I let the little family out to mix in with the rest, and bit by bit these 2 young ganders have taken over the goslings and sometimes shoo the mom away, so she hangs around in the background and the goslings go to her if they wish. I´m not worried, they´re well cared for, they really have 4 parents!
Meanwhile, the biological mom has given up on her ceramic eggs, and has now been trying to join this little group, and the ganders shoo her away too, but nothing much, and they´ll soon form a little flock of their own.

Meanwhile, the auto-sexing flock has its own story.......

Goose goings-on are such an interesting study.

 

[jtn42248]

Beautiful geese and goslings livin. jtn after yesterdays low of 15 and more to come Brazil is looking awfully inviting.

And it is supposed to snow here tonight. High today was around 45 and that was a midnight last night. We can be packed and ready to go in half an hour. All I need is some thongs for my little fat hens and they are ready for the beach.

And, I am not talking about flip flops.