e-chickens Our Geese
This is 'Xander our Gander. He is no particular breed but a typical farmyard goose originating from the Greylag Goose, which is the ancestor of all domesticated geese except for the African and the Chinese.
The following pictures were taken after the breeding season in 2003 when we let all the ducks, and goose, loose in the paddocks. Although 'Xander looks in charge he is a bit of a coward really, and none of the ducks take much notice of him trying to boss them about..
For my birthday in 2004 I had a female goose to keep 'Xander company. We've called her Anser (latin name for Goose) and are hoping for our first goose egg next year as they only lay from February to June. Well so the books tell me, but Anser and 'Xander can't read. They had two clutches in October. The first set were not fertile but the second clutch were - see below.
Anser and Xander's firstborn. Hatched lunchtime on 27th November 2004. She's got huge feet and is literally a handful as you can see in the picture. She is too tall to stand up in my first stage chicken brooder so she's gone straight into the glass tank. We've called her Willow because she warbles rather than cheeps. (from Willow Warbler, a little wild bird)
Next to hatch was a Yokohama chick. She is a fraction of Willow's size but they seem to get on OK. If the chick stands as tall as she can and Willow is lying down they look the same height!
Our second gosling hatched overnight and is called Buffy, to go with Willow and Xander. We weighed them today - Yoko is definitely the feather-weight of the trio at 17g, Buffy is 94 and Willow is the heavy-weight at 107g. The picture below emphasises the difference in height between Willow and Yoko, while Buffy on the right is still a little shaky on her legs and collapses every few steps. Yoko is asleep on her feet. When the goslings settle down for a rest the chick likes to sleep on top of them!
And then there were three. This is Druscila, on her own, and from left to right in the group shot we have Buffy, Willow and Druscila
Willow, at just two weeks of age, weighed
in at 436 grams! The three of them have now been moved into a large computer
box, but they will soon outgrow that as well and need to go outside into one of
the bird sheds. I usually keep youngsters indoors until fledged but at the rate
they are growing I won't have any choice.
I haven't got the heart to do this yet, but they do like eating cardboard. This
causes obvious problems and I came down one morning to find they had all escaped
and were huddled together looking out of the french windows. They came running
when I called them and were very glad to be put back in the box where their food
is. Escaping is obviously hungry work. Willow is now three weeks old and weighs
643 grams. She is by far the friendliest, being born first and therefore
impressed by humans rather than other geese, and follows me around the house. It
is a good job they are not as messy as ducks! It is now Christmas Day and she
weighs 802 grams.
Sadly Willow died after a tragic accident, and we
miss her very much, but the other two are doing fine and are now living in the
garden. Buffy still has the darker face and head and as you can see from the photo above, they still have a lot of down
showing, but as their feathers started growing it was far too hot inside for
them. Geese are very well insulated and heat tends to be more of a problem for
them than cold. Buffy, on the left, and Druscila have their own house to sleep
in at night and to shelter from the rain. They are still a little small to mix
with Anser and Xander yet but are already bigger than the Silver Appleyard
ducks.