My funny goose stories, Share yours!

[manybirds]

So we have 4 buff africans from Holdereads (keep in mind that these geese get 50ibs) and a tiny extremly fluffy extremly mean bantam cochin hen. The geese are mortified of her, when you feed the geese she walks up to there food dish and starts eating and the geese run.

So when we first got the buff africans from holdereads as babies we also had a pilgrim gander who's mate was sitting on a nest. We put the babies in the barn in a rabbit hutch that wasn't in use with a heat light. Well Waldo (the pilgrim gander) decided he would adopt the babies through the bars. Well you can imagine getting to there cage was fun and keeping them tame while there 'dad' said we where the boogie men was even funner. So when we took the africans out for some time in the yard of course it was dificult. I would start walking with baby geese in tow and Waldo would hiss at me and honk and the baby geese would go running to him and I would call and the babies would look so confused and sit in the middle asking why mom and dad goose didn't get along. When ever Waldo got the babies over to his side I swear he would look smug at me. His wife did not aprove of the aficans. This went on for about a month constant being hissed at and smug looks. When ever I would try to lock Waldo up he would find a way out and come running to the babies. Finaly his own eggs hatched and he went off with them though.

We have a pair of tame ordered Canada geese at our house. They love nothing more than to be misted with the hose. When the gander gets the chance his favorite thing to do is grab the end of the hose in his mouth and let it spray down his throat, this can get rather irritating when your trying to fill the pool but o well it's enormously entertaining.

We have a border collie who likes to herd waterfowl. So one time she got out and saw the pilgrims out in the yard. Well apparently she didn't take into consideration that they had babies.

We had a young muscovy drake a year or two ago. Well we also have our tame pair of canada's. The canada gander is very proud and feals the nead to beat up those who can't defend themselves (one time I came out to both canada's standing over a duckling they had flipped on its back taking turns biting it) any way the young muscovy was just hitting maturity and all of sudden took off chasing the canada gander. Well the canada gander was very confused and took off running, he ran around the barn and came back around, the indignant look he had was priceless, he just sat there ruffling his feathers. Unfortunetly the muscovy drake decided to take after a wild canada across the horse pasture and one of the horses got exited and killed the drake, that was the final straw for that horse and we sold him.

I'll post more of my stories as I think of them, in the meantime share yours!!!

 

[Gyburc]

I've had a little flock of ducks for some years now, and last summer I bought some Toulouse goslings, who started off in my living-room but quite quickly moved outside since the weather was very warm. Once the goslings were considerably bigger than the ducks, they started to put them in their place. Our biggest gosling Titan (now a fully-grown gander) thought it was excellent fun to chase the ducks and pull out their tail-feathers.

Until the day he tried this on our drake, George.

Titan put his head down and charged at George with all his might. George ran away for a little while, flapping and quacking, and then seemed to think 'Hang on a minute!'. He made a tight circle and came running at Titan from behind.

We were then treated to several seconds of a handsome big Toulouse gander running round in panicked circles, squawking in alarm, with a Rouen drake swinging off his tail-feathers.

Titan was most put out when we laughed.

 

[shelleyd2008]

My goslings (3 month old embdens, so they are far from small) get scared quite often by the 1-pound mama bantam hen when they get too close

Here are a couple 'stories'. The first and second are my son being stalked by a gander wanting 'his' babies. The second is our dog Rainbow playing with some young Africans I had last year. (Click the pictures to view the videos).







Another story I have is of a young embden gander I had, named 'Baby Goosey'. He was a lone hatchling, so he didn't really accept or get accepted by the other geese, and he couldn't stay in the house with us. He still loved me and followed me around when I was outside, but for some reason he fell in love with my son's wagon. He would follow that wagon all over the place...down to the road...to the pond...etc... He would never go to the pond on his own. I tried carrying him down there and tossing him in but he would just freak out and come right back to the house. So I got the idea to take the wagon to the pond since I knew he would follow it. Of course it worked, but he still wouldn't get in. I had to put the wagon in the pond for the gander to go in the water, it was pretty funny! He never did go to the pond by himself.

One thing I'd like to know is, why do they always look at the sky?? Are they afraid a pterodactyl is going to swoop down and grab them?

 

[manybirds]

Lol we also have a king rouen drake who beats up all the big geese!

Wonder why he liked the wagon...........?

 

[The goose girl]

One thing I'd like to know is, why do they always look at the sky?? Are they afraid a pterodactyl is going to swoop down and grab them?

That explains it!

 

[Denninmi]

I had to put my bbb turkeys in with the geese VERY temporarily because of the extreme weather and my not getting their pen done yet. The geese are twice their size but afraid of the little turks. Its working out ok, everyone is getting along well enough to be fine. This weekend I hope I get to finish their pen -- its forecast to rain Saturday. Ordinarily I would hope for rain for the garden, but this time, since I need a dry weekend to get something done, it will pour.

 

[Tivona]

I have had some golden layer ducks and this year got a few more ducklings to help fill out my flock. I also had gotten two embden goslings (River a male and Snow a female). They are almost full grown geese now and are extremely sweet. When they got bigger then the ducks I allowed them to be together and have had no problems. However in the batch of ducklings I wound up with 3 drakes that have been causing my duck girls problems now that they are old enough to breed.

Just a couple of days ago I heard one of my ducks crying getting pecked and beaten by the drakes. I marched out and tossed one of the drakes off of her. My gander River came running full till and grabbed the remaining drake and was proceeding to chomp his head and wings while the girl got away. I thought it was sweet that River would come to my 'rescue' like that after seeing the commotion. Ever since then though whenever my drakes want to mate with the one of the duck girls, River comes running and starts chomping on the drake to settle the 'dispute'.

Not sure how this will play out for ducklings next year though....

 

[manybirds]

Ha Ha my rouen drake never lets any other duck in the pen breed (humph).

 

[ellenmartin]

My Toulouse or Pilgrim (not sure what he is really) CLYDE sneaks into the garden daily and eats about 6-10 Jalapeno (the big ones) Peppers. Chews on them seeds and all and LOVES THEM. He looks at me like "Yeah, I'm eating the Jalapenos.... so!!" Hehe

I'll post a pic when I can of him eating one... seeds all over his FACE!!

 

[shelleyd2008]

A toulouse gander is gray, a pilgrim gander is white