Looks Like My Gander Drowned My Goose!

I found my Goose floating in one of the ponds today, face down, with her head under the water. She was pretty healthy, and had just laid three eggs. Her mate had been mounting her successfully every day this week. I don't think they ever did the act on land...always in the water. I'm assuming he just held her head under too long today. What a bummer! I'm not sure it's' right to raise expensive birds like Geese. One small mishap and you lose a big investment. We have Muscovies, and they often mate in water too, but we've never had any casualties from it.

I wanted geese really badly, because they're touted to eat more vegetation, but I'm not too sure they're much better than Muscovies in that regard. They're bigger, so of course each one would eat more, but pound for pound they probably eat the same amount of vegetation.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Muscovy have not been nearly as "domesticated" as geese have, so I'm not surprised you are thinking they might not be worth it. We don't have a pond, just a winter creek, and it's shallow enough that I don't think our gander could drown a goose - he hasn't so far and we've had the gander for at least 4 years.

Yes, Muscovy and geese both eat a fair bit of grass, but our Muscovy also eat a lot of insects. They don't have anywhere near the same amount of fat on them, so it partly depends on what your goals are nutritionally as to whether you want to grow one or both.  

Have you kept the eggs unwashed and unrefrigerated? Do you know anyone you could borrow an incubator from, or are any of your Muscovy nearly broody? I'd give a Muscovy mom those 3 goose eggs and she may be able to hatch you a replacement goose. (yes, I've done this on my farm - the moms figure out at about 3 weeks of age that something's wrong, but my gander adores goslings, so he's always taken over fostering the younglings at that point)

Jay Angler wrote:I'm sorry for your loss.

Muscovy have not been nearly as "domesticated" as geese have, so I'm not surprised you are thinking they might not be worth it. We don't have a pond, just a winter creek, and it's shallow enough that I don't think our gander could drown a goose - he hasn't so far and we've had the gander for at least 4 years.

Yes, Muscovy and geese both eat a fair bit of grass, but our Muscovy also eat a lot of insects. They don't have anywhere near the same amount of fat on them, so it partly depends on what your goals are nutritionally as to whether you want to grow one or both.  

Have you kept the eggs unwashed and unrefrigerated? Do you know anyone you could borrow an incubator from, or are any of your Muscovy nearly broody? I'd give a Muscovy mom those 3 goose eggs and she may be able to hatch you a replacement goose. (yes, I've done this on my farm - the moms figure out at about 3 weeks of age that something's wrong, but my gander adores goslings, so he's always taken over fostering the younglings at that point)

We're probably going to throw the three eggs in our incubator, and see if we're lucky. It's a big incubator, and we don't have other eggs right now, but we could buy some fertile chicken eggs from neighbors and throw them in a week later. I'm not even sure what breed of goose we had. They were only slightly larger than our Muscovy drakes, so they definitely weren't some large breed like Africans. How long does a smaller goose breed usually take to hatch?

I like fatty meats, and I also assume the fat content has more to do with their diet than if it's a goose or a muscovy. That's a secondary consideration for us. Our main priority is to raise birds that will do a lot of weeding of our food forest. Unfortunately, I don't think any birds are self-sufficient enough. Once we tried witholding feed from our Muscovies, and a couple of them started to starve to death. Still, I think it's easier to multiply Muscovies and get a larger flock over time. I wish they would eat the same diet as a cow, but I don't think that's how they're wired.

From my reading, domestic geese, just like Mallard-derived ducks, are known for having a lot of fat in their skin. This is a good fat, and it was important for people living in cold regions who needed those calories in the winter.

Muscovy on the other hand, are known for their lean meat and lower fat in general, although the time of year you process them makes a difference. If I make bone broth out of Khaki-Campbell necks and feet, there will be fat on the top for me to skim off. If I do the same with Muscovy, there will be a few dots of fat.

Geese are known for eating grass. In fact, if they're fed high protein feed as younglings, they'll end up with a condition called "Angel Wing" - a deformity of usually one wing. My older rescue goose has that condition and when her flight feathers grew in, we trimmed them so they wouldn't stick out and get in her way. I believe Muscovy can get this also, but not as easily because as I mentioned earlier, they tend to eat more bugs. However, I see our geese harvesting grass seed heads in the fall, so time of year affects their dietary needs.

It's important to remember that grass is a very poor source of food. All greens tend to be on the low side for calories on the basis of how long it takes an animal to graze, chew and digest them. This is why I find "feed conversion tables" a bit misleading. Geese and sheep are considered to require a *lot* of feed to produce a pound of meat. However, if that food is grass - yes, it takes a lot of grass to turn into a pound of meat. If that feed is grain, the volume and weight is less.

We have to lock all our animals up at night due to predator pressure, so my solution is to give them a ration of chicken feed in their shelters that's enough to give them full tummies, but not enough to leave left-overs. If they're acting *really* starving in the morning (Muscovy are mooches, so that's sometimes hard to call!) I encourage them to go and forage, but give them some "lunch" as well - just some more feed spilled on the ground. The geese often act interested, but in fact don't eat much of it. If they do, it tells me I need to increase their bedtime ration a bit.

In a perfect world, animals we raise would forage all their food, but we're raising them in an artificial situation and I only know of a few people who've managed to remove all feed and still have healthy animals. It takes keeping your density low and keeping the animals moving from area to area fairly quickly the way they would in the wild.

As for incubating the eggs - try figuring out the breed from pictures on the web, but I'd expect 4 to 4 1/2 weeks. I use a flashlight with a bit of rubber on it to seal it against the egg to candle them. Geese eggs need a different temp, humidity, care and management than chicken eggs, so I'd be inclined to just do the geese eggs despite the wasted space, and I'd recommend you do some research. If you can't find instructions on-line - post again and I'll break into my old ancient computer that has the files on it and post them here. Good luck!

Jay Angler wrote:From my reading, domestic geese, just like Mallard-derived ducks, are known for having a lot of fat in their skin. This is a good fat, and it was important for people living in cold regions who needed those calories in the winter.

Muscovy on the other hand, are known for their lean meat and lower fat in general, although the time of year you process them makes a difference. If I make bone broth out of Khaki-Campbell necks and feet, there will be fat on the top for me to skim off. If I do the same with Muscovy, there will be a few dots of fat.

Geese are known for eating grass. In fact, if they're fed high protein feed as younglings, they'll end up with a condition called "Angel Wing" - a deformity of usually one wing. My older rescue goose has that condition and when her flight feathers grew in, we trimmed them so they wouldn't stick out and get in her way. I believe Muscovy can get this also, but not as easily because as I mentioned earlier, they tend to eat more bugs. However, I see our geese harvesting grass seed heads in the fall, so time of year affects their dietary needs.

It's important to remember that grass is a very poor source of food. All greens tend to be on the low side for calories on the basis of how long it takes an animal to graze, chew and digest them. This is why I find "feed conversion tables" a bit misleading. Geese and sheep are considered to require a *lot* of feed to produce a pound of meat. However, if that food is grass - yes, it takes a lot of grass to turn into a pound of meat. If that feed is grain, the volume and weight is less.

We have to lock all our animals up at night due to predator pressure, so my solution is to give them a ration of chicken feed in their shelters that's enough to give them full tummies, but not enough to leave left-overs. If they're acting *really* starving in the morning (Muscovy are mooches, so that's sometimes hard to call!) I encourage them to go and forage, but give them some "lunch" as well - just some more feed spilled on the ground. The geese often act interested, but in fact don't eat much of it. If they do, it tells me I need to increase their bedtime ration a bit.

In a perfect world, animals we raise would forage all their food, but we're raising them in an artificial situation and I only know of a few people who've managed to remove all feed and still have healthy animals. It takes keeping your density low and keeping the animals moving from area to area fairly quickly the way they would in the wild.

As for incubating the eggs - try figuring out the breed from pictures on the web, but I'd expect 4 to 4 1/2 weeks. I use a flashlight with a bit of rubber on it to seal it against the egg to candle them. Geese eggs need a different temp, humidity, care and management than chicken eggs, so I'd be inclined to just do the geese eggs despite the wasted space, and I'd recommend you do some research. If you can't find instructions on-line - post again and I'll break into my old ancient computer that has the files on it and post them here. Good luck!

This is a great response. Looking at the different breeds of geese on the mcmurray hatchery website, I would guess our female was a Toulouse and the male a White Embden. I started the eggs in the incubator on November 30th at 37.6 Centigrade and 55% Relative Humidity. Not sure if that's optimal for goose eggs. Our male has now started following around one of our Muscovy moms with 9 ducklings. It looks like maybe he wants to protect them or something. I'm not used to the behavior, because the Muscovy males, on the other hand, only follow the females for one reason.

Scott Obar wrote:

Our male has now started following around one of our Muscovy moms with 9 ducklings. It looks like maybe he wants to protect them or something.

This  is exactly how our Gander behaves - they seem to like that role and our Muscovy moms are known to "park" their babies with his "Gander Duckling-sitting Service" while mom goes and has a serious bath (an activity which has been known to swamp innocent ducklings that got too close at the wrong time.) However, this is also a sign that the gander's getting a bit lonely. Hopefully the eggs will hatch and he'll have some company of his own kind.

Jay Angler wrote:Scott Obar wrote:

Our male has now started following around one of our Muscovy moms with 9 ducklings. It looks like maybe he wants to protect them or something.

This  is exactly how our Gander behaves - they seem to like that role and our Muscovy moms are known to "park" their babies with his "Gander Duckling-sitting Service" while mom goes and has a serious bath (an activity which has been known to swamp innocent ducklings that got too close at the wrong time.) However, this is also a sign that the gander's getting a bit lonely. Hopefully the eggs will hatch and he'll have some company of his own kind.

Do you think he'd accept goslings hatched in an incubator and raised for a month in a brooder? Otherwise, Could you give him freshly hatched goslings?

Scott Obar wrote:

Do you think he'd accept goslings hatched in an incubator and raised for a month in a brooder? Otherwise, Could you give him freshly hatched goslings?

This is a really tough question!  
In a perfect world, I would look at where your Gander is living at night, and decide if there's some way to make a secure area with a heat lamp for the hatchlings. Would you be able to lock your gander up beside that secure area, and then make it a little less secure after a day or so - the concept of a "creep feeder" where babies can get in, but the adult can't follow them and step on them? Goslings don't require near the level of constant perfect temperature as chicks do - they start off 3 times bigger and grow fast! You've got a couple of weeks to think about your housing and see what you can develop. The sooner the Gander starts "mothering" the better because with only 3 goslings, the risk of human imprinting is high, and that's something that in my opinion has long term negative effects. But you have to feel you have the time to observe how it's going and know that the goslings will have enough warmth at night and when napping.

If you post pictures of what your housing looks like, or what you think might work, I'm happy to have a look.

Yes, I can post a picture of our brooder setup. I'm curious, why do you think human imprinting is bad long-term?

Scott Obar wrote:Yes, I can post a picture of our brooder setup. I'm curious, why do you think human imprinting is bad long-term?

It's complicated and to every rule there is an exception, but in general:
1. I've been asked to take roosters in the past which were incubator hatched and human raised and they did not know how to "speak chicken".  They were unnecessarily aggressive with hens - think "rape" vs "courtship" and being a woman, I don't like that attitude in an animal or bird.
Example: I'd removed an imprinted male who seemed to be causing problems with the flock he was with. I wasn't sure what to do with him, but I happened to have a hen who'd been in my 'chicken hospital' due to an injury, and decided to try the rooster with her to see if he was better in a one-to-one situation. He immediately and aggressively jumped her and *really* upset her - he got culled.
At another time I had a really old male who didn't seem happy with his flock. I'd moved him to an unused shelter, and knew he was lonely, but again, I had a chicken in my hospital who I knew would be difficult to re-integrate to her original flock, so I figured I'd leave the male until she was well. I put her in and he hopped down from the perch, strutted his stuff, cooed to her and as my teenaged male clearly identified - he flirted with her. When I went to check later, she'd made a nest in the grass and she was burbling the happiest chicken noises I'd ever heard.
Animals raised by real moms that are at least similar in species, learn to speak their own language. So Muscovy aren't perfect for raising Khaki Campbell ducklings or goslings, but with a Muscovy mom, I can introduce them to adults of their species much sooner, and the Muscovy moms do teach them at least the concept of manners.
2. Animals raised by real moms are more aware of predators and danger. I've seen my husband's commercial pullets stand there looking at a Raven as if to say, "Hi there, what would you like?", to which the Raven replied, "to eat you." Similarly, they're better foragers.
3. I think a duck raised by a real mom is more likely to be a good mom herself. Humans are relying more and more on artificial incubation of birds and if the technology to do so becomes unreliable I suspect there are a bunch of breeds we risk loosing entirely (think the above mentioned Khaki Campbell ducks at least on my Island).
Those are the first 3 reasons I can think of today - I'll add more later if I think of them.

Here's a video clip of our brooder setup. When we do water fowl, we use those red feeders as waterers, and bury a trough covered with more screen, so the water collects in the trough underneath their waterer, instead of soaking the entire bedding.

Is that flat panel one of those heated gizmos that the birds can go underneath? If so, I suggest you figure out in advance safe ways to raise it a bit at a time as the goslings will start off much bigger than the chicks and get big fast.
What sorts of ducks have you raised in there? Muscovy? I'd guess that goslings start out about the size of week old Muscovy.

Jay Angler wrote:Is that flat panel one of those heated gizmos that the birds can go underneath? If so, I suggest you figure out in advance safe ways to raise it a bit at a time as the goslings will start off much bigger than the chicks and get big fast.
What sorts of ducks have you raised in there? Muscovy? I'd guess that goslings start out about the size of week old Muscovy.

Yes, that's what it is. We've raised muscovy in there before. Right now we're in between batches of birds. The ones in the video are now a couple months old and in their own tractor out on the land. The brooder has an ant problem right now. I think it's because of the bug zapper we leave on in there at night. The ants must be eating the dead bugs that get lost in the mulch.