For almost two months we have had quite some problems with our geese Jack, Heidi and Else. We thought that the combination of one male and two females would guarantee peace, but no, it doesn't. It turned out that Jack and Heidi formed a couple and that Heidi started to attack Else - badly. Since some local goose experts found it very unusual that a female and not the male is the aggressive one, we had to figure out if we were correct with our assumption that Jack was the male and Heidi and Else were the females. Apparently, this is not too easy to tell as three different vets could not help us. With the help of YouTube and a local goose expert (via phone), we learned how to distinguish between goose male and female parts. :D The result was that everybody was whom we expected to be. Else was not a happy goose anymore as we had to separate her from the other two. Goose experts told us to get another male for her. So, here is Siegfried! It was not easy to find a male goose relatively close to our home (we still had to drive for two hours to get him).
Siegfried moved in yesterday, on March 10th, 2018. Thankfully, he and Else did not fight. Unfortunately, there is no mutual interest in one another either. Today we tright to put all the geese together to see if it works, but it doesn't. The first five minutes were peaceful, but then Heidi attacked both Siegfried and Else. Siegfried's wing gut caught in the fence and Wyman had to free him. Else almost got strangulated by the fence Heidi forced her to run into. Wyman got injured in the face and I (Andrea) got bitten in the leg - which bled, although I was wearing two layers of pants. So, now we have two separate goose couples (although one pair is not even a couple yet). All these problems lead to different fencing plans. There is a lot of work to do at the moment as we are also extablishing our visitor farm and everything should look nice. Andrea will leave for her theater internship in the middle of April and won't be home for six weeks. And off to work we go!
1 Comment
Wyman
3/12/2018 04:28:12 pm
We live a life of danger! :)
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Author: Andrea
Mother, filmmaker, translator, editor. Archives
December 2019
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