We have a two year old Embden Gander who is not quite right. He has been ok about utility workers and UPS/Fed Ex deliveries to come in our fenced in yard. Children can come in and he talks to them as if he is telling them the rules of the yard and then goes on with his business. We have recently aqquired 6 toulouse babies which some days those are his kids and some days he could not be bothered. To get to the gist, had a friend who had to leave an abusive relationship has come to live with us. Unfortuately she cannot go into the yard without being harrassed by Jesse. I have seen him target her and go as far as hard biting causing her to have bruises. She has tried everything from giving him treats to running at him instead of away. I know that geese can sense fear, but can geese sense where someone has been abused? My female does not have this problem and will even come up and let our roommate pet her. Also our friend is on the small side. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything. Any advise to keep my friend from being abused any more ( by my goose) would be appreciated.
My Embden gander goes on and off of his attacking. Our female is very sweet as well! We get a rake scoop it under his chest and throw him and if you do it right then he will be really docile after that! I hope that helps!!!
Sounds as if his "fatherly" instincts have been triggered by the presence of the goslings. It will be necessary to keep him physically seperated (as in fence or pen) from your roommate until the goslings have grown up. His temperment should then go back to normal until next years breeding season. It's just normal goose behavior.
There isn't much to do to make him stop. Who knows why he has decided to single her out. It very well may be that he's agro due to having goslings around. I actually agree with carrying a lawn rake and holding him back with that . I don't think much of whacking him with it or making him do acrobatics with it but it sure will keep him more at a distance My memorable mean gander Pinhead (a Toulouse) was such a pain in the butt, to everyone. I used to run him down and pick him up and carry him like a football, which humiliated him and made him leave me alone -- for a while. Or, I would grab his snaky head and hold it firmly to the ground, which is "goose speak" for "Who's your Daddy??????" That was also effective . . . for a while I wouldn't expect your poor friend to have to do these things, or YOU either for that matter, but they are useful info, we've all had ganders like yours and mine. Poor lady escaped with her life and sanity from an abusive jerk (my condolences AND congratulations to her!!!!) to be singled out and "abused" by a gander. Sigh
I agree with everyone who said a rake. I personally bring a broom with me when I need to go into the goose yard, and swat my mean toulouse gander (former lap goose gone bad) whenever he starts trying to get me (I only swat him with the soft broomy part so he is never in physical pain from it). I also try not to turn my back on him, but luckily our females don't want him to attack me, so they make noise and run some interference every time he comes close to me so I can turn around and threaten him. Good luck! It sounds like he's probably singling your friend out because he knows she's an addition to "the flock", and he's protecting "his babies". I'm sure he'd be pretty ticked if the UPS man moved in, too.
Thank you for your help and information. I will definately get an outside broom to use to see if that will work. I am not too sure about the rake but will use that as last resort. We had left for a short vacation and found out not two hours we had left, Jesse made another attack. I want you to know our roommate would never do anything to hurt an animal, but he decided to latch on her pants leg again. There happened to be one of those cheap green plastic watering cans close to her, so she picked it up and swung hitting the side of the porch. The loud thud scared him so now all he does is balk at her from far away. Hopefully this is an end to the situation but as everyone knows geese are hard- headed. The dang bird is a drama queen anyways so who knows. but anyways thanks again and any other info would be appreciated.
I've seen Dave Holderread assert dominance with a huge African gander (The toughest on his farm..which isn't saying much...almost none of his birds are attackers). This particular gander had had a few run-ins with a renter they had before the Holderreads knew what was happening (through the span of a week or so, I think) and the gander learned that he could dominate the man. Since then he's challenged a number of people. Anyway, the way Dave deals with this is to move slowly and confidently with a friendly attitude and with a loosely rolled up chunk of newspaper in his hand (a relatively thin magazine loosely rolled up would work as well, I'm sure). When the gander got too close...trying to take the feed from the dish in his hands(Dave has boundaries with his birds that they are not to take food from his hands...part of his dominance management program.) he lightly tapped him on the top of his head (2 or 3 taps) with this rolled up paper. Gander did not like it and backed away immediately. There is no way it was painful, but still, it was annoying and in some way he experienced it as being dominated. He tried one more time, and Dave tapped him again. Then he moved away and waited for Dave to set down the dish. In addition to protecting the goslings, it sounds like your gander has learned that he's on top when it comes to your new housemate. I speculate that it is correctable and might be easier to repair than we would fear it would be. Another thing Dave says about feisty ganders is: don't intimidate them. They interpret intimidating behavior, or being run at, as a challenge and are then more likely to offer a counterattack, now or later. It becomes an ongoing war. This is the gander way. Let us know how your situation evolves! (edited to make a clarification) Dana
Thank you Dana, we are going to use this technique next hint of aggression. Dave Holderread has a lot of sound advice when working with our feathered friends.
