Toulouse Geese Thread

[Alaskan Dragonfly]

Hi ooptek! Being in Canada, you have a lot of the same weather as me... Do you have any advice for keeping the geese comfortable through our long winters? That's the only part I'm still worried about, although they are doing perfectly fine so far this year!

 

[Miss Lydia]

hey,

going bhonkers alerted me to this thread so had to jump in w/pics of my babies too. 2 summers ago I got 3 pair Toulouse from Metzer's farms which said they were from imported french birdies. Lost one right away within a week but the rest, 3 geese and 2 ganders turned out beautifully.

Last spring they musta layed a hundred eggs but only one sat on a nest faithfully, the other hens would sit for a day or 2 then get distracted too long. After the hatchlings came was even worse as far as attention span went. This year will incubate. The setting goose would hiss when I approached but didn't instill any fear in me. The rest were pretty normal tho would chase the doggies away a little more, but hard to say if they woulda done it anyways as they still do to m.o.l. same extent. The hatch was 5 but one died within a couple of weeks. They would haul the new babies over hill and dale and for awhile a first thing in morning chore would be to chase them back to the yard from a couple of hundred yards down the road.





They were excellent parents, they collectively cared for the newbies. Not any more aggressive than they are now and worse ever got was a pant leg nibbled.



They grew like little weeds




They do like the sounds of their own voices.




While there is a dugout mere feet from the back yard and a pond behind the garden, they prefer to spend most their time on the yard, they cover a lot of territory in a day and have definitely helped keep the lawns trimmed. They leave a lot of manure behind but one small rain and it magically disappears



Coming into fall they were identical to the parents, but I banded the parents w/zip ties (buy the pricier ones w/metal locking tongues and UV proof)



The cayuga's kept the dug out corner open till the rest had 5 inches of ice on it. The cayuga's are penned outside for the winter and penned the Toulouse last year but not this. They coop w/the rest of the birdie herd and are there every nite.



Back from a trip to the local farmer who butchers on the side in his yard. The doggies are pretty well on a solid fresh meat diet from freeze to thaw and the geese have a go at the scraps too. As well as the maggies.

Have the 4 youngin's to butcher pretty soon, finally got around to clearing out the freezers so is room for them, mmmmmmmmm ....... goosies.

Been thru the worst of the weather I hope, did a few weeks of -22°F w/o any losses to chickens, turkeys, peafowl, ducks, guinea's and geese, tho they are a lot happier is now in the +14°F's. Tho this is Saskatchewan and wouldn't be the least surprising if have a few more weeks of -25°F before garden planting end o' may. Days are starting to lengthen too which all seem to like.

Already thinking of new babies, garden and shirtsleeve weather.




Already one new baby has arrived, baby angel, both parents were working maremma X pyreneese. She was born and raised outside in the sheep pen until got her at about 10 weeks She spent the first few weeks here locked in a pen in the coop to bond w/the flock. Her and the big boy guardian are joined at the hip now and she is all eyes and ears learning from him. Soon will have the guardian-angel lookin' after the place. Only thing there is out here as much as coyotes, foxes, skunks and weasels are deer, and the big boy keeps them all at bay. Now he'll have some help as the little doggies are good to warn only as are coyote food and I'll have some redundancy just in case.

Best in the new year to everyone and as always

cheers

Beautiful pics, thank you so much for sharing , -25 wow I bet they are happy to see 14. I would be. Welcome To the Toulouse thread glad to have ya..

 

[aoxa]

Hi ooptek! Being in Canada, you have a lot of the same weather as me... Do you have any advice for keeping the geese comfortable through our long winters? That's the only part I'm still worried about, although they are doing perfectly fine so far this year!

I can't believe you just compared our winters LOL. I'm not in Western Canada which receives our coldest temps, but in the Eastern area, which is very similar to Maine in temperatures.

Well my geese are about as comfortable as you get outside. The weather hasn't been worse than -22F and they're fine. Not worried about them in the least. They have grassy hay because the ground is all covered in snow. As long as they have water they are happy.

 

[ooptec]

hey alaskan dragonfly,

No, after plucking waterfowl last winter don't worry much about them at all. A guy could only wish to find a suit w/as much down as they get during the winter. Nevermind the layer of fat.

When they were penned last winter the pen was covered in 4 feet off ground on 3 sides w/south side open and had a corner that was closed in w/a roof about four feet off the ground and that was almost never used till one layed there (the successful one). Other than that they had a favorite corner that was completely open w/a view to the yard where they would hang so I put some straw down for them there.

This year they are loose w/everything else and only the ducks are penned outside. Their pen is hoarded w/4 X 8 sheets of salvage plywood ..... so 4 feet up from ground and 3 sides as south side is open. Also a roof in a corner 4 feet up and strawed underneath and the duckies do use that. Both pens are done m.o.l. the same. They also have a area strawed in the corner where is open to south as they like to sun there.

They are more apt to be outside all winter and wander wherever the snow is hard packed more than the other birds. At night they go into the coop w/everything else where there is deep litter straw on floor. Turkeys are the only other thing that wander around much in winter tho not as much as the geese. Turkeys will plow thru deep loose snow when temps are warmer to feed on the droppings from the wild bird feeders as buy the wild bird food w/almost no millet but ground corn.

Usually try to get a few sacks of rolled steamed corn for the real cold days but can only get in one town and haven't been there same time the feed store is open this winter. I do collect all the fat from game and out of scrap pails from butcher and run thru meat grinder and then mix w/some dried alfalfa that grind pellets into dust/small pieces on a hand crank corn/grain grinder. They get that on real cold days every so often. Not sure the geese really go for it. Other than that everyone is on screenings from the local seed cleaning lady .... mix it 60% wheat/30% dried peas/10% salvaged pig feed and everyone does very well on it. Get the pig feed for free as my better half works as a research scientist at a univ. experimental pig barn and she salvages left overs from different feed trials they do there. They won't eat commercial layer feed and is expensive anyways.

Hope that helps

cheers

 

[Alaskan Dragonfly]

I can't believe you just compared our winters LOL. I'm not in Western Canada which receives our coldest temps, but in the Eastern area, which is very similar to Maine in temperatures.

Well my geese are about as comfortable as you get outside. The weather hasn't been worse than -22F and they're fine. Not worried about them in the least. They have grassy hay because the ground is all covered in snow. As long as they have water they are happy.

LOL aoxa! I think that the East Coast has worse winters than I do most of the time!

 

[aoxa]

LOL aoxa! I think that the East Coast has worse winters than I do most of the time!

Looking at your weather right now we are right on the mark. Actually.. We're colder on averages.

How is that possible? LOL

 

[LightningTFarm]

My late husband's family is from Maine, but his dad was in the Air Force so they were stationed in Alaska a couple of times. They said that often the temps in Anchorage were warmer than those in Maine (up at the top in Aroostook County).

We are facing flooding here in East Texas right now. It has been raining off and on for a couple of weeks and the ground is saturated, and then yesterday a big front started coming through that has brought us nearly 3" so far. On the 10 pm news last night they showed a flash flood warning from west of Dallas all the way to Jackson, Miss.!!

So far, the ducks and geese aren't minding the wet too much. When I went out to pen up the geese last night, they were standing knee-deep in water as leaves had blocking off drainage from their daytime area, so I had to clear that out. It is storming out there again, so I guess I better go check on everybody. Hope I don't get as wet as I did yesterday!!

 

[Miss Lydia]

My late husband's family is from Maine, but his dad was in the Air Force so they were stationed in Alaska a couple of times. They said that often the temps in Anchorage were warmer than those in Maine (up at the top in Aroostook County).

We are facing flooding here in East Texas right now. It has been raining off and on for a couple of weeks and the ground is saturated, and then yesterday a big front started coming through that has brought us nearly 3" so far. On the 10 pm news last night they showed a flash flood warning from west of Dallas all the way to Jackson, Miss.!!

So far, the ducks and geese aren't minding the wet too much. When I went out to pen up the geese last night, they were standing knee-deep in water as leaves had blocking off drainage from their daytime area, so I had to clear that out. It is storming out there again, so I guess I better go check on everybody. Hope I don't get as wet as I did yesterday!!

If you do i hope it's a warm rain.

 

[Alaskan Dragonfly]

Well, the temperature here is back down to +7F right now... it was +1 this morning. The weather guy keeps saying we might get snow, but I'll believe it when I see it. Of course, the honkers and quackers at Mom's house still prefer to be outside! The more I watch them, the more I wonder why I was even worried!

 

[aoxa]

Well, the temperature here is back down to +7F right now... it was +1 this morning. The weather guy keeps saying we might get snow, but I'll believe it when I see it. Of course, the honkers and quackers at Mom's house still prefer to be outside! The more I watch them, the more I wonder why I was even worried!

Tilly, Rosa & Winston all love the snow.
as long as they have some place to walk, they are outside. The snow is pretty deep and packed, so they can only walk where I made paths.


Water + Winston on look out = happy girls.