Horomones related to temperature

[Goosebaby]

I’ve had unusually warm temperatures most of the winter up until last week when it snowed here and it was fairly frigid during the nights.

Most of the winter my ganders have been behaving fairly well up until when it started snowing and Parsnip (8 year old gander) started fighting with his son Roxbury (one of this last year’s babies) and Leo (10 year old gander and Parsnip’s dad) put everyone else to shame and just about summoned the forces of Hell itself with his raging and I had to temporarily separate him in his own padded cell.

This week it’s been freakishly warm again and everyone’s settled down again, which made me wonder if the cold made everyone’s horomones spike. Today I remembered something I read a few years ago about how Tula geese, that the get more aggressive the colder it gets.

That definitly makes me think that breeding season hormone spikes are at least partly connected to temperature. Has anyone else noticed a correlation? Just curious.

 

[Leader Bee]

I have never had geese before so i don't quite know what to expect and just assumed it was that time of year, but yes, my two boys have been getting more agressive over the last few months and im almost certain ntheybwere trying to mate with my arm yesterday - im just hoping what everyone here says is right and they mellow out with age.

 

[Goosebaby]

I have never had geese before so i don't quite know what to expect and just assumed it was that time of year, but yes, my two boys have been getting more agressive over the last few months and im almost certain ntheybwere trying to mate with my arm yesterday - im just hoping what everyone here says is right and they mellow out with age.

I’m not sure mine ever got mellower with age, I think geese just learn to try to restrain themselves and we humans more or less get used to it and learn to try to avoid what provokes them over time.
I mean my oldest gander Leo isn’t any less aggressive than he was as a 2 year old but he usually knows just how much he can get away with before he gets picked up and carried around, I say usually because sometimes he just can’t control himself. Parsnip is really bonded with me and is very intelligent for a goose so he’s more in control of himself and his emotions, the few times I’ve been bitten by him is separating him from attacking something else (usually it’s the evil bucket) because once a fights going on they can get so frenzied and don’t even know who or what they’ve latched on to.

 

[iturnknobs]

I’m not sure mine ever got mellower with age, I think geese just learn to try to restrain themselves and we humans more or less get used to it and learn to try to avoid what provokes them over time.
I mean my oldest gander Leo isn’t any less aggressive than he was as a 2 year old but he usually knows just how much he can get away with before he gets picked up and carried around, I say usually because sometimes he just can’t control himself. Parsnip is really bonded with me and is very intelligent for a goose so he’s more in control of himself and his emotions, the few times I’ve been bitten by him is separating him from attacking something else (usually it’s the evil bucket) because once a fights going on they can get so frenzied and don’t even know who or what they’ve latched on to.

Do you house these birds together at night? My birds are at least out in the yard today(first time since Saturday morning). My dominant gander(NOT ANYMORE) either hides in the garage or gets chased out into the deep snow. He didn't even want to leave the garage this morning. He kept looking around the corner before finally walking out. I feel like an awful pet owner.

 

[Goosebaby]

Do you house these birds together at night? My birds are at least out in the yard today(first time since Saturday morning). My dominant gander(NOT ANYMORE) either hides in the garage or gets chased out into the deep snow. He didn't even want to leave the garage this morning. He kept looking around the corner before finally walking out. I feel like an awful pet owner.

They’re together at night but separated into three cages Group 1 Leo, Parsnip, & Delphi.

Group 2 Friday, Apricot + the babies Helios, Roxbury, Tuesday, Dandelion.

Group 3 Darby & Strawberry.

Each group is in their own dog kennel at night, as the babies get older I may seperate them into another kennel for more space.
During the day Group 1&2 are out and about together because they’re one flock, until they get rotated with group 3 who are in a dog run when they’re not out because those two do not get along with anyone.

Several years ago Darby and Strawberry were grouped with Leo and Friday and Parsnip was with his brother Thor, the two groups did not get along. A few years later all of a sudden Darby and Strawberry started trying to kill Leo so they were seperate into their own group, on their own they're fine but together they feed off of each other’s energy so a fight that would have ended after two minutes just doesn’t end, they get along okay with each other but others not so much.

After Thor passed I got Parsnip two girls (Apricot and Delphi) who he didn’t really want anything to do with, he wanted to join Leo’s group but Leo and his sister Friday would just attack him, Leo also kept pinning after Darby and Strawberry even though the murder birds wanted nothing to do with him.
At some point something clicked and Leo accepted Parsnip and stopped pinning after Darby and Strawberry.

Delphi was accepted into their flock but for some reason no one wanted poor Apricot around except Delphi which was just sad. After the babies hatched Apricot helped Friday raise them and Friday accepted Apricot and the babies have grown up with her as their other mom so it’s worked out.

 

[Goosebaby]

Do you house these birds together at night? My birds are at least out in the yard today(first time since Saturday morning). My dominant gander(NOT ANYMORE) either hides in the garage or gets chased out into the deep snow. He didn't even want to leave the garage this morning. He kept looking around the corner before finally walking out. I feel like an awful pet owner.

You can’t control how they want to treat each other unfortunately, it’s not your fault.

 

[Cindarelly]

Once we had snow, ours changed a bit. I will try and notice if the colder days makes for more aggression.

 

[LadyWolf44005]

Once we had snow, ours changed a bit. I will try and notice if the colder days makes for more aggression.

I will do the same. I am curious now myself

 

[3xhhheather]

YES! Okay, so I've been keeping mental track of this. If it's a cold morning my gander comes outta that coop ready for a fight (with me). If it's rainy & cold I have an even harder time getting him to redirect and move on. There was a freak bit of snow last week and the aggression was through the roof. Besides that most evenings here haven't been dropping below 20F with daytime temps almost hitting 50F and his overall attitude has been so much better. I feel like it should be getting worse because of breeding season(?), but I'll take his good mornings while they last

A little side note--I was looking over several local breeders' FB & Blog pages, many of them stated how 2020 was one of the worst hatch years and that overall fertility was really low. It made me start thinking about how in the spring it kept switching from high temps to below freezing, plus we had an unusual amount of rain. I wonder with the seasonal changes becoming more unpredictable could that be affecting fertility & hormones?

 

[Goosebaby]

YES! Okay, so I've been keeping mental track of this. If it's a cold morning my gander comes outta that coop ready for a fight (with me). If it's rainy & cold I have an even harder time getting him to redirect and move on. There was a freak bit of snow last week and the aggression was through the roof. Besides that most evenings here haven't been dropping below 20F with daytime temps almost hitting 50F and his overall attitude has been so much better. I feel like it should be getting worse because of breeding season(?), but I'll take his good mornings while they last

A little side note--I was looking over several local breeders' FB & Blog pages, many of them stated how 2020 was one of the worst hatch years and that overall fertility was really low. It made me start thinking about how in the spring it kept switching from high temps to below freezing, plus we had an unusual amount of rain. I wonder with the seasonal changes becoming more unpredictable could that be affecting fertility & hormones?

That’s a good theory, I never thought about it till now but there definitly could be a connection, if the temps are affecting horomones it’s probably affecting fertility too.