Can This Twain Meet?

Geese are geese, right? Yep, and they're also territorial and averse to strangers, even those of their own kind it seems. Unless our geese are just special...

The goslings are about 2/3'rds grown already. I remember when one of them would fit in the palm of my hand. Barely five weeks later, they're almost the size of our two-year olds! As you might guess, Tufted Roman Geese have been breed to mature quickly. Small as this breed may be (10 to 12 pounds max), they're considered meat birds. Although we bought them as "guard geese" and think of them as pets, there's been times when thoroughly annoyed by their antics I've thought of them as "meat birds" as well... but I digress. Ahem!

Anyhow, I've been trying to integrate the goslings with the mature geese for three days now. A few hours at a time these past few early evenings. Nothing doing. The mature geese see the new girls as interlopers, and run the goslings all over the pen. Once in awhile the group of young'uns will charge back, frightening a solitary goose, but then the older geese will group up and charge back. There's only the occasional chomp on a wing, otherwise it's mostly posturing and bluff.

Maybe once the goslings get a little older, Billy-Bob will realize these are new females for his harem and broker some sort of peace agreement. As I look out the window right now, there seems to be a cease-fire of sorts: the mature geese are on one side of the pen, resting, and the goslings on the other side, doing the same. Perhaps from this will come a détente, then a relative peace - as far as "peace" and "geese" go. I certainly hope so!

[pics: Top left, the goslings. Bottom right, three of the mature geese, with Billy-Bob on the far right.]

"Honey?"

I called from the porch into the house, "Why is there dog food in the birdhouse?" When geeks live together, it's best to ask questions first before messing with something that appears to be an experiment or otherwise out of the ordinary. I was hosing bird droppings off the front porch, a.k.a. "the poop deck*", when I lifted the birdhouse and food started coming out.

"Why is there what?" Spouse looked outside the door. "Dog food? Oh, I thought you said dog poo!"

I poured the rest of the kibble out of the back of the birdhouse. Scratch grains came tumbling after the kibble, and then a small, abandoned mud-dauber's nest. "I bet there's a bird hiding away this food," says Spouse. "Can you imagine how long it took to load all this?" There were at least three cups of kibble stored inside.

"We should set up a web cam, see who's doing this work", he says. Shouldn't be too hard to do, as there's already two web cams up: one monitoring the night pen, and one looking out over the front yard. Between the cams, the dogs, the geese, and the electrified poultry netting, we have the best protected pasture-raised, free-ranging chickens in the county. Now it looks like the local wildlife is taking advantage of that protection (and the feed) as well...

*phrase courtesy of Natalie, who has a chicken and a wonderful geekly family, and writes about them over at Chicken Blog.

[pic: stored food & birdhouse. Birdhouse was made by Spouse's dad - gorgeous!]

Pootles and Tootles

Life keeps moving, even if I'm still recovering (aiiieee! slowly, but recovering) from surgery. A few goings ons:

The emergency generator is now fully installed! It may have taken longer than I would have liked, but thankfully there was no need for it during the winter freezes.

The side yard goose pond's old pump has been replaced with a pump that can (hopefully) keep up with the poo-producing capacities of our geese.

Attended our first chicken show, where our neighbor's daughter had four entries. So many cool-looking breeds! Glad I didn't bring a carrier, as it would have been tempting to purchase a few to take home. Spouse saw a Golden Phoenix/Ameraucana cross-bred rooster (gorgeous!), and is idly considering getting an Ameraucana roo to breed with our new Golden Phoenix pullets.

And speaking of chickens: the new chicken coop is almost complete. Pics will be forthcoming. The plan is to put the chickens into the coop at night, so they wake up in the new domain. We'll keep a large fence around the coop - and the chickens in the pen/coop area - for a couple of days, so they get used to the new digs. We'll have to hide the old coop somewhere, although Spouse keeps threatening to give it, and some chickens, to his Uncle who doesn't want chickens...

Then last, but not least: we're renting the backhoe/digger again for an upcoming weekend's worth of projects. There's fruit trees to plant, trenches to fill, paths to re-gravel, and much mulching to be done. I feel rather geeky to admit I'm looking forward to working with heavy machinery :-). In the meantime, however, I need to rest up. I'm sure Miss Cecily will oblige my efforts.

[pic: Miss Cecily having her afternoon rest, and making sure I stay on the couch as well.]

Spoiled Goose is Spoiled

If bossiness is any indicator, Miss Cecily may be on the mend.

• If the feeding tube is within beak's reach, it is attacked.
• If there's something of interest on the coffee table - and within beak's reach - it will get nibbled.
• If her soon-to-be-patented "Put me on your chest, it's nap time, human!" stare is not acted upon by one of us, the other human is then set upon. Repeat until one of the humans give in.
• It's not enough to let her out with the other geese - one of the human pillows must be there as well, or caterwauling will commence.

On a more serious note, she's walking more, and keeping her head upright for longer periods of time. She had a four week run of taking DMSO, and has been off for almost two weeks without relapse. She's not only molting, but is growing in new feathers. She's yet to put on weight - the stress from molting and new feather output takes up a lot of calories - so her smoothie feedings* are now four times a day. I've been able to space out the vitamin shots to 72 hour intervals without noticeable energy lag on her part. Hoping that once the new feathers are in, she'll quickly start recovering full flexibility and strength.

In the meantime, however, if being spoiled rotten is any indicator of health, Miss Cecily is well on her way to full recovery.

*Miss Cecily's Green Smoothie - makes four or more 2 ounce servings:

Stick-blend a handful of kale in a cup of water; strain & save juice.
Approx half cup+ of chick feed, ground into a powder.
Contents of two fish oil capsules
1/8th teaspoon of pro-biotics
One powdered glucosamine/chondroiten tablet

Mix together, and let sit for at least an hour so the grains can soak up some of the liquid. Stick blend again, adding more water if necessary to obtain a soupy consistency.

New Additions

We didn't plan it this way, but perhaps it's a blessing for it to happen so soon after Godzilla's passing. We just got in our order of new goslings and chicks. Four more Tufted Roman females, six buff Wyandottes, and the "surprise pullets" were two each of Brahmas, Fayoumis, and Gold Phoenix. Love them fuzzy butts!



Of course, this means Billy-Bob the gander is going to have a total of nine female geese to mind, but I don't think he'll "mind" at all.