Hi, all- I've just had these two adult geese (one white Chinese, one Pilgrim- both female) for a week. They're refusing to leave one tiny corner of their pen; they won't go out the open gate into a beautiful grassy area to graze. If I herd them out, all they want to do is run back in.
They seem really traumatized by leaving their old home, which was a large pen with a lot of evergreen trees overheard - (as well as leaving their former owners, of course). The new area is very wide open, no trees, lots of grass (I have electric poultry netting around it).
I close them up at night in a predator-secure coop; looks a lot like one I saw here on BYC, for geese, actually. They seem terrified of me while I'm doing it! - but they are eating and drinking OK when they're in there, and sometimes they go in on their own, during the day.
Any advice about how to help them feel more at home here? Or should I just wait them out?
Thanks, everybody!
Robin
PS I am brand-new to poultry and have 5 happy Welsh Harlequin youngsters in the next door pen to the geese. But they have access to my veg. garden, and I don't really want the geese in with them.
They seem really traumatized by leaving their old home, which was a large pen with a lot of evergreen trees overheard - (as well as leaving their former owners, of course). The new area is very wide open, no trees, lots of grass (I have electric poultry netting around it).
I close them up at night in a predator-secure coop; looks a lot like one I saw here on BYC, for geese, actually. They seem terrified of me while I'm doing it! - but they are eating and drinking OK when they're in there, and sometimes they go in on their own, during the day.
Any advice about how to help them feel more at home here? Or should I just wait them out?
Thanks, everybody!
Robin
PS I am brand-new to poultry and have 5 happy Welsh Harlequin youngsters in the next door pen to the geese. But they have access to my veg. garden, and I don't really want the geese in with them.