We moved the geese outside a few weeks ago, they are beautiful little geese with all their feathers coming in nicely. We put Thor and Loki, our male geese, out of the pen and let the girls out in the pen yesterday they did a little chicken chasing but, it sure looked like they were happy to get out and stretch their wings. We are starting the process of them bounding with a mate. We caught two And put bright orange zip ties on their legs to help identify them as Loki's girls. Then we had a supervised visit with Loki.
I started this post almost two weeks ago, we had tradgety strike since then. One of our baby geese was killed by a predator. My husband comes home from work and we do what we call second dinner. Lol...we feed all of the poultry the fermented feed the second time for the day. He likes giving out scratch grains to the ducks and geese up by the back patio, I opened the gate from their pen and we had a stampeded out towards him, I do a bit of a head count when I go out...well, kind of...I look for specific chickens, and do a quick look at the ducks and geese. One was missing...I saw her laying by the fence. Normally all four of the baby geese would be together, no more than feet away from each other...I ran to the one next to the fence praying that she was asleep, or maybe stuck...but, she was dead...she was still warm so whatever killed her had not been gone long. I don't remember what I said but Crew came running, it was his favorite little goose. He gently pulled her head through the fence and started looking her over. We didn't see any blood on her, but discovered about a two inch slit at the base of her neck. I felt sick, just wanted to cry...we think it was a bird of prey, but the first daytime attack we have had. The dogs were in the yard only about 50 feet from where I found her. The whole area is fenced, actually there are several fences and areas within areas...so whatever it was had to fly. It must have landed in my upper vegetable garden area, she may have been sleeping by the fence when it attacked her and pulled her head through the fence. It didn't have time to eat her, her wound was not obvious and the feathers were not bloody. It just pisses me off that with all the rabbits and squirrels running around here that it had to take out one of our baby geese. I say baby goose...it is not like it was small, she probably weighed about 6 or 7 pounds and was about the same body sized as a full grown duck, just a longer set of legs and long neck. I had to go do chores, I had to try and not think about her death and do something else before I broke down in tears. I went and gathered eggs, feed and water the baby chickens.
Crew disappeared with the goose. We have talked about aviary netting, but we have a large area to cover...and it would take an awful lot to protect them from overhead. I already have scare tape on a lot of the fencing, I have a decoy owl and falcon...and those didn't stop the bird of prey...even my dogs barking apparently did not deter it. We may try running fine fishing wire overhead, but that would require taller posts...we have since let the adult male geese have access to the girls, we are hoping that Thor and Loki will protect them, their wingspan is about 5 feet now...so whatever bird of prey would have to be pretty huge to want to tackle an 18 pound mad goose.
I started this post almost two weeks ago, we had tradgety strike since then. One of our baby geese was killed by a predator. My husband comes home from work and we do what we call second dinner. Lol...we feed all of the poultry the fermented feed the second time for the day. He likes giving out scratch grains to the ducks and geese up by the back patio, I opened the gate from their pen and we had a stampeded out towards him, I do a bit of a head count when I go out...well, kind of...I look for specific chickens, and do a quick look at the ducks and geese. One was missing...I saw her laying by the fence. Normally all four of the baby geese would be together, no more than feet away from each other...I ran to the one next to the fence praying that she was asleep, or maybe stuck...but, she was dead...she was still warm so whatever killed her had not been gone long. I don't remember what I said but Crew came running, it was his favorite little goose. He gently pulled her head through the fence and started looking her over. We didn't see any blood on her, but discovered about a two inch slit at the base of her neck. I felt sick, just wanted to cry...we think it was a bird of prey, but the first daytime attack we have had. The dogs were in the yard only about 50 feet from where I found her. The whole area is fenced, actually there are several fences and areas within areas...so whatever it was had to fly. It must have landed in my upper vegetable garden area, she may have been sleeping by the fence when it attacked her and pulled her head through the fence. It didn't have time to eat her, her wound was not obvious and the feathers were not bloody. It just pisses me off that with all the rabbits and squirrels running around here that it had to take out one of our baby geese. I say baby goose...it is not like it was small, she probably weighed about 6 or 7 pounds and was about the same body sized as a full grown duck, just a longer set of legs and long neck. I had to go do chores, I had to try and not think about her death and do something else before I broke down in tears. I went and gathered eggs, feed and water the baby chickens.
Crew disappeared with the goose. We have talked about aviary netting, but we have a large area to cover...and it would take an awful lot to protect them from overhead. I already have scare tape on a lot of the fencing, I have a decoy owl and falcon...and those didn't stop the bird of prey...even my dogs barking apparently did not deter it. We may try running fine fishing wire overhead, but that would require taller posts...we have since let the adult male geese have access to the girls, we are hoping that Thor and Loki will protect them, their wingspan is about 5 feet now...so whatever bird of prey would have to be pretty huge to want to tackle an 18 pound mad goose.
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