Poor Lacie goose, I felt so bad for her yesterday. Those of you who have geese know that their body language is very clear and they do a lot of their communicating through body language that other bird species just don't understand. Yesterday I briefly let my broody who has the cemani culls out of their enclosure so I could clean everything. She doesn't take them out of the coop and after I just herd her back in after so it works well.
Well, Lacie loves baby chicks. She came into the coop and was talking to them with her happy voice, displaying all kinds of friendly body language - she just wanted to see the babies. They were afraid of her - after all she is a huge white bird that they don't really know - so they were running from her a little bit while she was trying to be nice. Then suddenly the broody turned around, kicked her in the chest, grabbed her head and ripped out a huge chunk of feathers. Poor Lacie started making her distress call and ran out of there as fast as she could.
Then later while I was just finishing up the cleaning, broody number one took her chicks too close to another broody's nest and a huge fight broke out. Lacie raced into the coop and put herself between the fighting broodies and the chicks who were hiding in the corner and hissed and hissed and protected the babies until I could break the fight up, at which point I put momma and her chicks back into their enclosure.
I really hope Lacie likes the juvenile geese I'm picking up tomorrow because she really needs some friends.