Protective Mother Goose

[Miss Lydia]

 

[Chickensrforus1234]

Sounds pretty normal to me she's protective of her baby you're clearly trying to be protective of your baby. That's like a mother thing.

Your best option is just not to raise anymore Gosling. Sell the baby go back to the way you were before and you will be able to keep her and be happy.

Alternatively if you are dead set in raising goslings just raise them in a different field somewhere separated and introduce them when they're bigger.

If you ever want to see it really crazy aggressive mom go see Swan sitting on her nest!!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have heard about Swans just a bigger mama goose. lol

I just take all eggs away from my goose that way I don't have to put up with the aggression except from the gander who thinks he is in secret service and everything is a threat to his mate.

 

[The goose girl]

A loooong time ago, when I was in business school, we were taught that it takes ten positive customer encounters to overcome one bad one. The point then was to get the customer to have the ten good experiences before the bad one. Geese are kind of the same way, except they have a really hard time overcoming the one bad experience. And they tend to transfer the bad experience to the whole set of circumstances.

Your goose saw the hoe as a threat, and she immediately included your daughter to be part of that threat - better safe than sorry. You may be able to reverse the reaction, but it takes a lot of time and patience. Especially now that the goose has been reinforcing her belief that your daughter is a threat several times.

If you keep your daughter away from the geese for a couple of days, it gives the goose a chance to get back to "DEFCON 5". Then you could reintroduce them, approaching calmly and loudly (not sneaking quietly, they hate that), pausing every time the goose even hints at reacting, and respecting her definition of a safety zone.

It should work, but with a mother goose there's always a high risk of something else setting her off.

 

[sourland]

@The goose girl, excellent post.

 

[AndreaV636]

Thank you guys for all of the input. Our goose is still pretty untrusting of my daughter. I am keeping her separated for now and crossing my fingers. Next year, I think I will raise the goslings separately!

 

[Sarkchick]

I'm glad things are going alittle better.

I think I agree with you. I have 4 adult geese (2 m, 2 f) raised in brooder. They were much easier to raise, followed me every where. I now have 3 goslings raised by parents, can not get near them. All 4 adults are very protective.

 

[Clucksworth12]

Hello! I would say do not get rid of her! She is just portraying her natural instincts to protect and care for her young. she will most certainly go back to the old goose as soon as her babies no longer rely fully on her. Also, have you seen the goose bite your daughter? no doubt the goose did it, but maybe she felt threatened. I know that the six year olds in my family run to the goslings and want to hold the 'cute babies' and the goose doesn't understand they mean no harm.

 

[Sarkchick]

That's so true Clucksworth12. All my goslings have to do is squeek and all 4 adults come running. And they do that when they are scared or get trapped on the wrong side of the coop fence. It's totally moms instinct to protect their young.
It's the same as AndreaV636 is doing- protecting her young.