Mating Season?

[A Couple of Geese]

Hi all,

It's been a bit since I've posted. Things are going well with the two geese. Just some questions.

The two were born in June, so they're about 8 months old now. I noticed my male doing some show-off behaviors, and today I noticed the female seemed to be making a nest in her indoor living space. She's been making these sounds that I assume are mating sounds, but I'm not sure. I saw her sitting in the nest area she had made. My question is, what should I be expecting this year? Will she lay eggs this Winter into Spring season? If so, do I need to start feeding her different foods? If I don't care about egg-laying at all, do I still need to change her food? Is it still safe to pick her up if she's in an egg-laying phase?

Thanks!

 

[Goosebaby]

She’ll lay wether you care about her laying or not, she needs a layer feed or oyster shell. Considering you have a gander I would suggest oyster shell because eating layer feed for long periods of time isn’t healthy for males, or for females that aren’t in the laying season.

Without added calcium she can end up developing soft shelled or shell-less eggs, which can break easily inside her body cavity and cause infection, then death.

It isn’t unusual for her to start laying now, breeding season typically starts in winter and lasts through the spring, the sounds you are hearing, if they’re kind of like a soft “whoooo” sound that’s repeated, it isn’t so much a mating call as a “I’m happy” sound, I’ve found that they do it a lot when building nests “males and females,” but also when they’re exploring a fun bush, discovered a good puddle to bathe in, or found some extra yummy snacks.

 

[A Couple of Geese]

She’ll lay wether you care about her laying or not, she needs a layer feed or oyster shell. Considering you have a gander I would suggest oyster shell because eating layer feed for long periods of time isn’t healthy for males, or for females that aren’t in the laying season.

Without added calcium she can end up developing soft shelled or shell-less eggs, which can break easily inside her body cavity and cause infection, then death.

It isn’t unusual for her to start laying now, breeding season typically starts in winter and lasts through the spring, the sounds you are hearing, if they’re kind of like a soft “whoooo” sound that’s repeated, it isn’t so much a mating call as a “I’m happy” sound, I’ve found that they do it a lot when building nests “males and females,” but also when they’re exploring a fun bush, discovered a good puddle to bathe in, or found some extra yummy snacks.

Thank you for posting this. Between then and now she ended up laying an egg. They're actually a little over 7 months old now, so I wasn't expecting this so soon. This is my first time with Geese so I'm just trying to make sure everything is done correctly. One of my questions about the feed was about how it would effect the male, and whether he'd need to eat separately somehow so thank you for that.

We aren't planning to have baby geese or anything. Is there a proper way to be dealing with her eggs after she lays them? I don't want to anger/depress her but at some point I guess I need to get rid of them.

I'm going to do some more research myself on this, but I'll ask here, too. How many eggs should I expect and over what period of time until I can say she's done for the season, if that's even possible? They're Pilgrim Geese.

Thank you so much.

 

[Goosebaby]

According to Metzer you can expect around 20 - 25 eggs a year from Pilgrims.

When I don’t want goslings I just take the eggs when the girls take a break from the nest, I haven’t noticed any lasting psychological effects beyond a day if you take the eggs early. Once they’ve invested time in sitting on them they seem to get more upset.
Some give geese ceramic eggs to sit on but I don’t see any benefit from letting them starve for 3+ weeks trying to hatch fake eggs, personally I think it’s better just to take the eggs if you’re not planning on goslings.

 

[A Couple of Geese]

According to Metzer you can expect around 20 - 25 eggs a year from Pilgrims.

When I don’t want goslings I just take the eggs when the girls take a break from the nest, I haven’t noticed any lasting psychological effects beyond a day if you take the eggs early. Once they’ve invested time in sitting on them they seem to get more upset.
Some give geese ceramic eggs to sit on but I don’t see any benefit from letting them starve for 3+ weeks trying to hatch fake eggs, personally I think it’s better just to take the eggs if you’re not planning on goslings.

Thank you for the reply.

At this point there's been 3 eggs. The first two were two days apart and this last one was four days after the second. Their "nest" is part of their indoor living space, and the routine for them is they go into their outdoor living area when I wake up in the morning until it gets dark if the weather isn't too harsh.

I'm wondering if it's bad to remove them from their nest area each day with no way to access til I let them in again. They don't seem to care that much, and she isn't sitting on the eggs or anything. When I put them back in the evening the male kind of does a check on the nest where he makes this particular sound. That's about it. He did this after I took the first egg out and it broke my heart, it sounds sad. I'm kind of rotating the eggs now so they feel like they have something to watch over. When she had the third egg this morning I took the first one and I don't think they even care or notice. The only real change I've noticed is they are a lot calmer and quieter through the day since this all began.

 

[Goosebaby]

Thank you for the reply.

At this point there's been 3 eggs. The first two were two days apart and this last one was four days after the second. Their "nest" is part of their indoor living space, and the routine for them is they go into their outdoor living area when I wake up in the morning until it gets dark if the weather isn't too harsh.

I'm wondering if it's bad to remove them from their nest area each day with no way to access til I let them in again. They don't seem to care that much, and she isn't sitting on the eggs or anything. When I put them back in the evening the male kind of does a check on the nest where he makes this particular sound. That's about it. He did this after I took the first egg out and it broke my heart, it sounds sad. I'm kind of rotating the eggs now so they feel like they have something to watch over. When she had the third egg this morning I took the first one and I don't think they even care or notice. The only real change I've noticed is they are a lot calmer and quieter through the day since this all began.

Typically geese don’t spend a lot of time with the eggs when they first start laying, Shell lay and collect quite a few before she goes broody and wants to sit on them full time, removing them when they leave the nest for the day doesn’t really upset them from what I’ve seen.
At any stage ganders like to “help” out with the eggs, they’ll “help” build nests and sometimes even boot the girls off the nest so they can plop down on the eggs themselves for a few minutes

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

@A Couple of Geese, my Pilgrims typically start laying in late Feb and are done for the season in July. I take all the eggs away because I prefer goslings to be human-imprinted. If you make it your routine to collect her egg when she's off the nest each day as @Goosebaby suggested, they should become accustomed to it. The challenge, of course, is to get the egg without them seeing you (the egg thief) do it.

 

[Mari Posa]

Thank you for posting this. Between then and now she ended up laying an egg. They're actually a little over 7 months old now, so I wasn't expecting this so soon. This is my first time with Geese so I'm just trying to make sure everything is done correctly. One of my questions about the feed was about how it would effect the male, and whether he'd need to eat separately somehow so thank you for that.

We aren't planning to have baby geese or anything. Is there a proper way to be dealing with her eggs after she lays them? I don't want to anger/depress her but at some point I guess I need to get rid of them.

I'm going to do some more research myself on this, but I'll ask here, too. How many eggs should I expect and over what period of time until I can say she's done for the season, if that's even possible? They're Pilgrim Geese.

Thank you so much.

My two geese were hatched last May, and have been laying eggs now for about 6 weeks. I have consistently been getting one to two eggs a day between the two of them. They both lay in the same nest that they have built. I collect the eggs every day when they are off eating grass. The eggs are delicious to eat. Similar to a chicken's egg only a whole lot bigger! I have French Toulouse geese. They eat the oyster shell quite a bit. Unfortunately one is always on top trying to mate and ripping the feathers off of my other girls head. She needs a bonnet. Now it seems they are trying to mate with my chickens! My poor chickens are not happy about this.