New to geese ❤️ Can I add a new mate?

[Realtree4]

Good morning!

I have raise all of the farm animals for years....pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks.... but never ever geese.

Yesterday, I acquired 3 Geese. Two Pilgrim (a mating pair) and an single Embden Gander. He lost his mate last winter and is just the tag-a-long at this point.

They get along great and fantastic, but my concern is mating season.....only having one female and two males. I will be adding them to my two female duck area.....once they are settled in.

Should I try to find another female (or two) for my Embden and will that work adding new in? Or what should I anticipate come mating season?

Geese are 100% new to me, but I'm finding that in just 12 hours with them, I am fascinated!!!!!

 

[Goosebaby]

It all depends on their personalIities and how bonded they are. Some of my boys get along fine most of the year but I have to split them up in breeding season, others never get along, and one of my groups is a 2 gander 1 goose group and they’re fine with each other year round.

If the two ganders are getting along (spending time close together, eating out of the same bowl without tying to chase each other away) that’s a very good thing, they probably will squabble now and then in breeding season but as long as they have enough room to get away from each other they should be fine. Most fights between bonded ganders are just because of horomones and after they established dominance in a brief scuffle, they should be fine for the rest of the day or a few days.

If an individual fight doesn’t stop after he first 15 to 30 seconds you my need to step in and split it up, especially if it continues past a minute. At that point they aren’t thinking clearly and could be inflicting a lot of damage.

Adding a female might not alter the ganders behavior towards each other, but goose dynamics aren’t always about what sex their bonded flock members are, they might see the new female as an outsider and might not want a fourth goose mixing in their clique, or they might accept her, but it could take time.

If the fighting gets too bad and you have to separate the ganders you’ll need the extra female for your gander though.

 

[JRies]

Welcome to geese once I got them I never looked back love all of mine but GooseBaby is right. The geese will let you know what they need. They are all individuals. 1 girl and 2 boys might work I have one girl with 3 boys in a flock that all live together in a flock of 20 lots of extra girls around. but all 3 boys are dedicated to her and only her. Yep been a few fights between the boys but by the time breeding season happened one was daddy 2 were her faithful guardians. The boys worked it out the hard way went out one day and one boy was missing all his tail feathers but in the end she choose him. You may end up with one boy who just protects and one who has rights to her but most of the time they will work it out.

 

[Realtree4]

Thank you both so much!

They all seem very devoted to each other and are a good group together. The lady that gave them to me said the two mating pair has already hatched out goslings this past spring.

So I'm going to leave well enough alone and just try to pay attention to how they behave.

So far...they seem happy!

I'm just loving these guys already