You really can’t believe everything you hear from people…we were told that geese laying season was winter time and that they layed up until Valentine’s Day (14th of February).  This is the first year that we have had geese and we waited and waited for eggs until Valentine’s Day.  On this very day, when we were just about to give up all hope, the first egg was found plop in the middle of the coop.  Oh, we were so excited and happy that we immediately put it in the incubator.

After the first egg, Goosie Wars started and we have been caught in the scourge of testosterone driven goosie madness every day since then…

The ganders are super aggressive; unprovoked, they chase us around the farm, pecking brutally at our legs.  Every morning, I am armed with a broom as I enter the war zone, anticipating the daily ambush by the bunch of crazy, blood-thirsty geese.

After a while, we noticed that while the ganders were creating interference and causing bodily harm, the female geese were dashing into bushy areas of the farm.  It took us some time to figure out the females were laying in secret spots.  For some time, it became a “watching game” where I would act as decoy to the violent exploits of the geese ( I am a brave kinda Munchkin or a sucker for punishment!) and Gnome would surreptitiously follow the female geese into the bushy areas.

This was the first nest that we found:

We found a few more after this.  There was however one savvy female goose that made a nest in the coop; this scary looking one:

She was originally sitting on six eggs and now she only has one!  I still do not understand fully the psychology of geese but there is a gander who keeps pushing her off her eggs and sits on them himself.  She comes back round and they have a big fight and she regains her nest.  During this squabble, an egg or two is usually lost.  We don’t hold much hope for anything happening with this one but we have certainly learned that we need to have protected brooding boxes next year.

We found another girl sitting out in the middle of the bush, all zazen and tranquil, on her nest.  That was all fine but she was about 200 yards from the house and we were afraid for her safety.

We decided to make a bunch of brooding nests in the coop and attempted a midnight “kidnap” of this goose to re-locate her to protected surroundings.  Gnome made a special effort as usual with spacious cabana-style nests:

Operation: Kidnap and Re-locate Broody Goose proved to be a failure and the goose was let out of the nest in the morning.  She was all flustered and cross at us!  Okay, you live and learn…re-locate a goose at your peril!  These eggs had to go into the incubator.

Although we are black and blue and weary from Goosie Wars, one good thing has happened.  We had our first gosling hatching (the Valentine’s Day egg) the other day.  This little one is bouncy, lively and friendly.  There is perhaps hope that we can breed a goose out of these wars that we can train to be peace-loving, kind and gentle.  Our idealism is coming out once again…we will overturn our anarchist geese one day and replace them with Zazen geese that will make the world a better place to live in.

The Beginnings Are Delicate Times…the future is with the young ones…

It’s time for a game change goosies!!

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