Strait run from Metzer Farms?

[bock]

I have two 5 week old chinese geese from metzer farms. When I ordered them you could pick female, male, or straitrun. Now (10 weeks later) I noticed they changed their website so you can choose pairs, straitrun, or females. Do you think this means I ended up with 2 males? If I do, do you think they will fight when they are older?(They are mainly for protecting my flock of ducks, though I was hoping for at least one female. Thanks!

 

[CMV]

I have not dealt with Metzer Farms, but I have dealt with straight-run and I am never doing it again. I got straight run ducks and geese last year and the ratios were heavily skewed toward males. I ran into big problems because of the incorrect ratio. I had 2 females to 5 males (1 loss to a hawk), and the males destroyed my females. The male geese even tried mating with my female duck and injured her badly. Bad situation from which I learned 3 things:
1. Straight-run is not a great thing unless you are OK with culling out extra males. Extra males can be very dangerous to females. Overbreeding beats a hen up very quickly.
2. Ducks and geese are not a great mix. Geese will attack ducks with little provocation and the results can be devastating.
3. Geese are loud, but pretty useless as flock protectors. They honk at full volume and then run away from danger. And they are frequently more of a danger to the flock than an outside predator.

Your question about fighting- as long as there are no females to fight over they should be fine. I never had problems with my males fighting, just with beating up my females.

Good luck.

 

[Friend2Fowl]

I've not had any problems with my geese bullying my ducks, maybe yours were because they were raised together? But I agree about the straight-run thing, especially if the breed you get is one that can be sexed. They say that straight run is as-hatched, but really, do you think they have some they just don't sex? I don't. Personally, I'd rather pay the extra $1.50 or whatever it is this year to know I was getting a pair. The only way I'd order straight run goslings is if that was the only option (as with other hatcheries), or if I was ordering 1 or 2 pair and needed a few more to fill the order, the few more would be straight run.

Geese are not protectors, they are good alarms, because they will let you know if something is not right in their area, but I wouldn't really on them to protect your ducks.

 

[1lpoock]

Well did you pick straight run? That's weird that they changed it that way, you'd think they would only allow you to order sexed males if anything because most people want females, that way they wouldn't have a crazy amount of males left?

 

[Tinted]

I just ordered from Metzer, and the Toulouse are the same way. I ordered a female from them.

 

[bock]

Sigh, well maybe I'll order some female geese next year.

 

[Puddle Foot Farm]

Metzer has a policy so that you can only order up to two more females of the same breed without getting more males. This is to try to insure that straight run is pretty close to straight run. The website only changed because you have to order females first, then the minimum number of males will be determined based on female order size.

Beyond that, having two males and 3 females shouldn't be a problem. We have 1 male and 4 females, and one of the females (Miss Lonely Heart, as my mom calls her) is chased away from the trio constantly, and the male is actually aggressive towards her. She now has to sleep outside their night house (in our garage), and cannot stay within the pen with the other geese. The ideal gander-goose ratio is about 1:3, so then eggs are fertile and the gander isn't too "overwhelmed". Generally, I'm pretty sure as long as there is no more than a 1:1 ratio, they will cope.

 

[bock]

Thanks GEGchickens! Maybe it will all work out after all!