Toulouse Geese Thread

[livininbrazil]

After looking at all the unbearably cute pictures, I'm beginning to wonder if its normal that my gooses beak isn't as bright orange as the others....could this be a nutritional or health problem or is that normal?

Hi Ermer. As you´ve noticed also from pics of adult geese, they vary with the colour of the bill. You can get black, orange or pink, and a mix of these colours too. All depends on her ancestry.

USUALLY the honk is reliable. The gander has the high-pitched trumpet and the goose has the low-pitched grunt. It has been true in every goose I've been up close with. Ganders also tend to hold their neck more vertical with their head much higher.

Hi everyone. You all seem to be a little perkier w/ spring. I have a question that I have asked several times before and can never get an answer. Is there a way to tell male from female in adult toulouse,besides dna. I know about vent sexing, but that seems dangerous to me if u don't know what you're doing.

As Dragonfly says, but the voice only becomes really noticeable as the bird reaches maturity. And the point about posture, too. A gander stands differently and behaves differently. As if he´s Martial and is protecting his "flock". He´ll likely be heavier, thicker, rounder head.....females just tend to get on with life, although I do have one female here that´s a real matriarch and behaves a bit like a gander, but she doesn´t swan about like one.

 

[livininbrazil]

LOL..dirt. LOL mud.
Last Spring I got a notion to make myself one of those ponds with the liner in it, fill it with water, get a pump, landscape it etc. I started digging and took a break for about a week to get dimensions on the liner. In that time, it rained and the hole filled with water. Now as you see from these goslings and ducks, they just LOVED it! Still do. They go into every day and root around the bottom for more goo and just play in it.

Dear little things......

 

[livininbrazil]

And the lobes under the belly.
Buddy the loud-mouth instigator is in front of his merry band of mayhem here. Notice little lobes.

Molly is followed by her kids, Albus and Adele. Both of them are Toulouse/African cross. Molly has lobes under her belly. Notice she walks with her neck pretty close to her body. Like her daughter in back of her. Albus to the rear has his more extended. He walks more upright than Buddy, but I think it's due to his African genetic input.That is also how Albus and Adele have mottled beaks.

Great pics. Adele is very pretty.

 

[clmschke]

Thanks! Adele has been disappearing near bedtime lately, so we followed her out to the back 40..as we call the field behind the house. She's followed in her Mom's footsteps and laid her eggs under some scrub. She's got 8 eggs in there. Hubby and I will be moving it into the goose pen tonight so she can be safe while she's brooding. The way we do it is to take a box out and grab some of the nest as well. Then we show her the eggs as she's protesting all the way back to the pen. At least I hope that works as well with her as it did with Molly. Molly looked at us, gave us that dirty look, then just settled into her new nesting area and laid 6 more eggs.

My biggest concern right now is that we usually use the lower garage as sort of the nesting/nursery for the girls. It's big and wide, has lots of straw in it and with the door open, they can see what's going on during the day, and be safe at night, EXCEPT some &*^&^&%%*^%%^$$%^#$%^ animal is hiding in the insulation and stealing eggs! I WANT IT GONE! Can you feel my frustration? We've set up 3 different traps and it's still there!

 

[livininbrazil]

Thanks! Adele has been disappearing near bedtime lately, so we followed her out to the back 40..as we call the field behind the house. She's followed in her Mom's footsteps and laid her eggs under some scrub. She's got 8 eggs in there. Hubby and I will be moving it into the goose pen tonight so she can be safe while she's brooding. The way we do it is to take a box out and grab some of the nest as well. Then we show her the eggs as she's protesting all the way back to the pen. At least I hope that works as well with her as it did with Molly. Molly looked at us, gave us that dirty look, then just settled into her new nesting area and laid 6 more eggs.

My biggest concern right now is that we usually use the lower garage as sort of the nesting/nursery for the girls. It's big and wide, has lots of straw in it and with the door open, they can see what's going on during the day, and be safe at night, EXCEPT some &*^&^&%%*^%%^$$%^#$%^ animal is hiding in the insulation and stealing eggs! I WANT IT GONE! Can you feel my frustration? We've set up 3 different traps and it's still there!

I hope all goes well with moving her...difficult job. You´ll have to make it so she can´t get anywhere near her preferred place. I´ve succeeded in doing this with 2 geese, but I only moved their nests a couple of metres.

 

[livininbrazil]

Oh, and who has Adele mated with?

 

[clmschke]

Adele has either mated with Albus, her sibling (we try not to think about it too much) or Buddy, the other Toulouse. It's kind of hard to know with 8 ganders about. Albus has been seen hanging around her quite a bit when she trots out to the back 40. We will certainly tell after they are hatched.

What's odd is when we took Molly's nest from outside to inside she took right to it. She never did go back to that old area and she had plenty of opportunity to do so. As you see in the picture, she's the one in back near whatever the heck that Craftsman thing is. The other geese in the photo is our African girls. We made her a 3-sided nest shell w/some plywood with lots of straw in there. She acted more calm if we made a barrier of straw bales around her nest area. I'm hoping to do the same thing this year once we rid ourselves of whatever crappin animal is in there now.

 

[livininbrazil]

Adele has either mated with Albus, her sibling (we try not to think about it too much) or Buddy, the other Toulouse. It's kind of hard to know with 8 ganders about. Albus has been seen hanging around her quite a bit when she trots out to the back 40. We will certainly tell after they are hatched.

What's odd is when we took Molly's nest from outside to inside she took right to it. She never did go back to that old area and she had plenty of opportunity to do so. As you see in the picture, she's the one in back near whatever the heck that Craftsman thing is. The other geese in the photo is our African girls. We made her a 3-sided nest shell w/some plywood with lots of straw in there. She acted more calm if we made a barrier of straw bales around her nest area. I'm hoping to do the same thing this year once we rid ourselves of whatever crappin animal is in there now.

They´re very beautiful. And if she´s mated with her bro, there could be some interesting gozzies. Bro and sis mating in this instance isn´t a problem.

 

[servpolice]

They look very young how old are they

 

[clmschke]

They are last years' hatch. They are the little ones in the pond picture with the ducks.

Unfortunately, Molly, their Mom, had 6 babies. One died shortly after hatching. But the others..... she had a habit of taking them out to the road out in front. Not that the 40 acres out back were good enough. Nor the entire driveway full of gravel + the grit we put out sufficient for her needs. Nor the 150' of fencing enough of a deterrent to keep her out of the road. NOO, she had them out in the road. I came home from class one day to find 3 dead geese lined up beside my mailbox. I couldn't really be mad at anyone for it; I tried all I could to get her to stop. It broke my heart, though.

Since then, she's learned to stay away from the road and the two surviving goslings are now Albus and Adele.


And for the one who wanted to know about the difference in male and female geese
“I have a question that I have asked several times before and can never get an answer. Is there a way to tell male from female in adult toulouse,besides dna. I know about vent sexing, but that seems dangerous to me if u don't know what you're doing.”

Molly has a very distinctive call, so I had to record it. This was recorded about 2 days after she hatched her babies.