The African and Chinese goose thread!!

[goingducks]

Hi, I don't have geese but I hope to get a few next year. My question is do geese get a long with ducks?

We have 2 Chinese geese and a runner duck and they get along great. We raised them together though. But we have a pekin duck that adopted us and they get along just fine with her too!

 

[goingducks]

When they go broody, they stop laying normally. Some geese will go broody without a single egg! If there is a rock in the nest, she may try to hatch it. Or fake eggs also. I just recently had 2 embden broody and found 1 large rock buried in that nest. Ugh. My geese have already stopped laying for the season.

Thank you! I was wondering why she wasn't laying! Glad it's a normal thing!

 

[Spyderk117]

We have 2 Chinese geese and a runner duck and they get along great. We raised them together though. But we have a pekin duck that adopted us and they get along just fine with her too!

Okay thank you!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
Agreed, mine comingle fine. I have mallard and muscovy. Have had other breeds also without issues.

 

[NathanZee]

What time of year do most geese molt? James and Elizabeths goslings are beginning to grow in wing feathers, they are just little pins. I've heard wild geese molt with their goslings, so will they too?

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

What time of year do most geese molt? James and Elizabeths goslings are beginning to grow in wing feathers, they are just little pins. I've heard wild geese molt with their goslings, so will they too?

Very possibly so, mine are already in a heavy molt. Goose are no longer laying, which is part of the signs the season is over for them. I had a very weird quirk last year with the brown chinese, the youngest 2 hens were laying into December. Wish I could get that lucky again! You will know, you will start to notice a lot of primary flight feathers dropping.

 

[NathanZee]

Very possibly so, mine are already in a heavy molt. Goose are no longer laying, which is part of the signs the season is over for them. I had a very weird quirk last year with the brown chinese, the youngest 2 hens were laying into December. Wish I could get that lucky again! You will know, you will start to notice a lot of primary flight feathers dropping.

Okay. They are beginning to lose a couple upper shoulder feathers, but no primaries yet. Elizabeth will be sad she can't fly when she does molt.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote:
My embden hens fly well too, can clear fences. They hate molt! The tiny one will scale a fence during molt to free range when she wants too. Chinese are the best fliers though.

 

[nightowl223]

Great timing, LOL! I just came on to see if it was the normal time to molt, and how heavy they usually molt, because both Thunder (started first) and Lightning (several days behind) are dropping primary wing feathers everywhere - sometimes in clumps! I don't thing Thunder has a single primary left on either wing, poor thing. Lightning has gotten really grumpy again, and extra-protective of Thunder again (like during early spring), so they've been in the "time out" pen regularly lately. I've even had to put Lightning to the ground to get him to submit twice this week! Seriously grumpy, he is! *rolls eyes*

On the other hand, they HAVE been helping me keep watch overnight over the past nearly two weeks - we got hit HARD by a HUGE pack of raccoons, and the chickens were decimated by them! I lost half my flock from them before we got them all gone! I was heartbroken over losing my very favorite hen, a darling and sweet little Blue Frizzled Banty Cochin girl, a great mama, loved pettings and sitting on my lap... she died in my arms.

Well, once I stopped crying, I got MAD!

I literally stayed up all night, every night, with every tool at my disposal, to get rid of them! There were at least 10 different ones, and one was HUGE! We truly didn't expect it to fit into ANY size livetrap, it was so big! They were frighteningly smart, too - when I'd be on one side, patrolling or setting traps, they'd sneak in on the other side! They even took advantage of a ladder that we'd left to repair a roof leak on one of the coops! GAH! That's when everyone had to be relocated!

Aaaaanyway, Thunder and Lightning caught on very quickly that Mom had a "noisy stick" (.22 rifle) that they wanted no part of being in front of, and they started parking right near me (a plus was the extra lights we strung up that brought tasty bugs to eat!), they KNEW when it was time for Mom to be rounding up all the chickens to get them locked up securely (we had to relocate the survivors into more secure quarters, and all birds on one side of the house, nearby), and any time Mom had to go on break to answer the call of nature, they would park right where they could watch the corridor where the *bleeping bleeps* came in from until Mom got back to take over again. It was fascinating watching how quickly they picked up on what was going on!

So, I came to ask about molting, and ended up venting instead. *shrug*

My apologies... I didn't really mean to write such a long, emotional rant. I did need it, though. Thanks for listening.

 

[englishcockers]

She started laying months ago, laid more than 50 eggs. We thought she might never set. But she finally did, and today we saw this little guy.