I knew it would happen, our little gosling spends a fair bit of time out of the brooder and in one of our laps. It doesn't matter if it is a he or she...this one won't be going anywhere...I can tell. We just call it Baby Goose for now...it has a lot of personality for only being ten days old. It is hard not to get attached to them, they are very cute, they will snuggle up to you, and "talk" to you. I have two more goose eggs that are suppose to hatch on Saturday, it won't be too much longer and this little one won't be alone any more. I need to learn how to sex them...so far we have 7 developing in the incubator. I don't think I can not handle too many more males, as it is Loki can be quite a handful. Thor is pretty gentle, I can feed him out of my hand and he doesn't chomp down on my fingers...Loki gets a bit crazy and will grab a hold of my fingers trying to get to the food in my hand, he chases Thor away and bites the top of his wing and holds on and runs with Thor trying to get away.
I took some pictures, I will try and see if I can figure out how to get them uploaded again so I can post them. A video would be better I am sure...the little gosling likes to nibble on my husband arm hair, chest hair, grab ahold of your lip, nip an ear...and really likes biting the webbing between your fingers. It is cute now, may not be so cute when it grows up. Geese are pretty smart, and can be trained to go into their house, they love scratch grains and will come flying up the hill if they are in the bottom of the pasture...any time I come outside. They know about when feeding time is too, they will stand at the back gate and call all the other critters to come to the fence and wait, I think they do it to alert me that it is getting late...it is time to eat, put your tools down now and feed us! Lol, that is what I think they are saying anyway. I work outside a lot when it is nice, so if they are hungry I don't get a whole lot done some days. The geese leave me alone if it is not close to time for food, they love to play in mud puddles, swim in their pools, take naps in the sun. Every once in awhile Thor will come find me, he talks to me softly, he is a good boy...I told him we were trying to get him some girls of his own, he hangs around with some of our ducks. Geese are pretty good protectors too, they alarm on any perceived dangers, like a hawk flying overhead or a raccoon digging in the compost pile. It is funny watching all of the chickens run for cover, the geese honk loudly and spread their wings and run in unison up the hill. The turkeys start gobbling and flapping their wings too. Sometimes it will be a huge blue Heron flying to the pond, but some days it is the family of Hawks we have living across the street...or very large buzzards. We have a lot of Crows come into one section of trees behind the poultry yard in the evenings sometimes and they don't alarm on them. They can be quite loud at times, the Crows.
I love my poultry, but sometimes they can be rather frustrating, they get underfoot a lot and I may step on a foot occasionally, the geese can honk so loud at times that it is hard to think and impossible to hear anything else, the turkeys steal tools, knock over boxes of screws and staples, take off with my gloves, bite me on the butt, nip my fingers when I am consentrating on building something...so, if you ever decide to get into poultry, I hope you have a lot of patience, you are going to need it! I do enjoy sitting and watching them, their interactions, the graceful geese swimming in their big tank. Our little white duck, looking up at us with her big blue eyes pleading for scratch grains or other treats, they are both a joy and a pain in the butt sometimes.
It is pretty cold here this morning, there is a pretty heavy frost on everything. My husband said that all of the pools and waterers had about a quarter of an inch of ice on top, except the cattle tank. My husband drained the cattle tank and cleaned it over the weekend. He started refilling it, but I finished filling it yesterday...maybe The water was just warm enough not to freeze? I have two more pools to drain and clean out today. Yesterday I mucked out the Duck and Goose house, the Sidecar/grow out pen, the Pallet Coop and removed some of the composted bedding from the run on the Big Coop. I took out probably a ton of muck! It took me all day shoveling it into my large garden cart and dragging it to different garden areas. I think it was 12 very full cartloads, it supposedly can hold 600 pounds...I cannot pull that much up a hill, I put three cartloads in my front yard to till in when I create my garden area up front, and eight in my biggest garden area in the back of the poultry yard. The chickens, ducks and geese will spread it out and I will till it in when it is time. I have at least another ton of composted chicken manure in the run that I can use...I just have to get it out. I usually put the spent pine shavings from the coop into the run, I use the deep liter method in most of my coops and have to turn it and add more regularly.
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