Need help with agressive Embden

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.

 

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

 

blissdragon, so well said.

 

blissdragon: I will have to remember that.. thank you for sharing.