I think my geese have lost their minds.....

[shelleyd2008]

I posted about a month ago about my White Chinese goose laying eggs. Then, I'd only found a few eggs (think 2 or 3), and thought she had just stopped. Today my son found a nest with 4 goose eggs in it...from the looks of them they are her eggs. Nothing too odd, I know the Chinese geese can lay in the fall, but a few days ago my son and I were fishing on our pond. The geese had to come down and be nosey of course. While they were out swimming on the water, two of the Embden ganders were trying to breed one of the geese?? What the heck? Chinese geese laying in the fall....okay. But Embden ganders breeding in the fall? Not normal!

Eggs found today

 

[crj]

Quote:
Well, they are males and it's obvious that it doesn't matter the species they are always thinking of mating. I believe it's a year round thing.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I don't believe it is with geese, they should be seasonal breeders.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Are the males young? I have one from spring hatch that is trying to breed now. My older gander isn't breeding, but he's getting a teeny bnit agressive like its nearin "that time" again. Nobody is laying here though.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I only have one gander from this year, the others are all last year's or the year before's hatches. I don't think it was the young one, but there were 2 of them. One trying to breed and another trying to break it up.

 

[duck walk]

some of my White Chinese are laying and all of the ganders are active...I have six ganders and fourteen geese...some times I think I am living "in the house" at the UFC...it gets a little rowdy out there...I have a Toulouse gander named Rampage, after one of my favs on MMA, and he sneaked up on one of Barny's babes a couple of days ago...Barney is a Brown Chinese...Rampage is just coming of age and he was totally foolish to think he could claim one of Barny's girls...Barney is the senior gander...well, Rampage got his clock cleaned even tho he is bigger than Barney...size has no advantage over totally ticked off...all the girls were screaming, the ducks were running for cover as they wanted no part of the contest splashing on them...Rampage was humiliated but he will live to fight another day...there will be a day when I need to separate the the two breeds...

 

[goosedragon]

Geese like other Foul can be confused by artifical light. They normally start thinking about breeding when the days start getting longer (around dec 22) Is there any chance that you are confusing them with things like security lights or using lights to do your chores now that it is getting dark earlier? lights from the house or street lights? how about heat lamps? It doesn't take a lot of light atudies have shown that a 40 watt bulb is enough to mess with their breeding cycle. ~gd

 

[shelleyd2008]

The only light on at night is the security light in front of the house. However, the geese sleep on the pond, about 1/8 of a mile from the house. So unless they are getting mixed up by the full moon we've been having, I don't think that's the problem

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:
Full moon will do it every time.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
Full moon will do it every time.

Ah yes, what was I thinking? The full moon makes everything act weird