You´re not far off. Pilgrims only go back to the 1930s. White ganders with grey geese go back about a thousand years, and certainly by the time Cook went to Australia, there were these geese in the little remote farms dotted around England and france, etc. West-of-England, Normandy, shetland are names recently given to the already existing auto-sexing birds in those regions.Why is Settler Geese more accurate then Pilgrims??? Is it something to do with when Captain Cook came to Australia he brought with him these Geese, or don't Pilgrims go back as far as the 1600's???
hahah, I have got you inspire now have I. Well we can share each others ideas. Bamboo is a great idea but I don't think we have any lying around and I don't really want to have to buy anything.
I have already made their little sleeping hut and should be able to extend it as they grow. Now I just need to make their run. We work using the metric system over here so what is 10ft sq to metric?
In Australia, especially down my way, the biggest threat in terms of predators we have would be foxes, Goannas and large eagles. Would any of these attack an adult Goose? I know Goannas won't, they'll just take the eggs, but what about eagles and foxes? *touch wood* I haven't seen a fox around our way for about 3 years now (to many dogs about) but there is still the chance.
I expect someone has imported Pilgrim geese to Australia, but most likely the auto-sexing geese were already there. That´s one of the reasons why they´re being called settler geese, because they´re not from Pilgrims, most of them will have come from the auto-sexing geese brought over from Europe a long way back.
Happily, we have bamboo growing here, so it´s easy and free! Oh, that makes it easy, then. Metric here, too. 3m sq. I have more difficulty converting the temperature, but I try to use imperial as most readers on here are american.
Foxes will take an adult goose no problem, you´ll have to make it very secure, as they´ll dig, too, so have a little house at night for them that a fox can´t possibly get into. Goanas, I have no idea, but here we have big lizard, teiú, or tegu, which will take eggs and chicks, goslings, etc. There´s no large bird here that would be able to take a goose. What do the eagles normally live on? Will they take a duck or a chicken? Or a lamb? Also, keep an eye on dogs, as dogs will also take geese if they´ve not been trained to leave them alone.
The first I made for little things here was of a wooden frame, but I put 2cm-sized chainlink on it, which made it really heavy, so it was difficult for animals to move, (us too!) and small enough holes to keep the babies in. (Chicks sometimes got out of it, but not the gozzies.) Nothing got into it to harm the babies, it was very strong. I t was mainly to protect them from my own untrained little dogs, terriers, terrible hunters, and possums. Now my dogs are fine, and I think the dogs keep the possums at bay.
Don´t forget we´ll be wanting to pics!
Here´s a pic of one of my gals with her babes...4 boys, 2 girls.
These are pics of Normandies, just for interest.