The Fat Ewe Farm has lots of goslings this year. The eggs that were in the incubator did not hatch, but boy, the mothers have had no problems hatching them. There are three nests hatched so far, with two more to go. There are 7 left out of 11 in one gaggle and 13 out of 17 in the other, which is actually two together. Baby geese are quick to follow their parents and aunts and uncles around and are agile and smart, unlike turkey poults. Both turkeys lost all their babies, 10 and 5 respectively. But, the turkeys had only the mammas to look after the babies. The geese have two parents and extended family to care for the little ones. 

What happens when these geese grow up? Some will be sold unsexed, since I have no idea what the sexes are until they start to mate. There is a way to tell, best when they are first out of the egg, but I am not about to catch those babies and turn them upside down and look. Depending on the hatch numbers of the next two nests, there will be a lot of little goslings running around. Fortunately, they mostly eat grass, with bugs and worms as a protein supplement, so they feed themselves. I have had to feed the ones hatched in the incubator, goslings and ducklings, twice daily otherwise. Soon, I will liberate them though, since they are mostly feathered, and they can forage as well. There are now three Rouen ducks sitting on nests of nine to ten eggs, so there will be more ducklings too. 

The geese that are not sold as young adults will be taken to the butchers for winter roast goose. People do not eat much goose around here. It was always my father's favourite, preferring it by far to turkey, which he said was dry. I do enjoy roast goose too, and the young geese at the season's end are in prime condition, grass fed and tender. It is not that I set out to raise geese for meat, but that is the choice given at the end of summer since no farm needs 30 geese! Young goose sells for $50 per goose, if anyone would like to preorder. Hint hint. 

Gosh ducklings and goslings are cute! The last of the hatch was out today, with just a few goose eggs to go. The eggs were collected early in spring when the temperatures were still very low and although they were likely fertile, they were not viable. The ducks laid in their shelter and the chickens in their nesting boxes, but the geese were laying outside in makeshift nests. Unfortunately, most of the eggs got chilled and only two geese out of 50 eggs hatched. There are four geese setting now though, and each has a dozen or more eggs, so most likely, many of those eggs will hatch. The geese adults all care for and protect the young goslings. Last year, the gaggle raised 5 mom hatched little gaffers and they all went into the freezer. This year, if the eggs all hatch, which is not likely, but possible, there will be more than 40 goslings. It will be more difficult to protect the babies from arial predators, particularly the ravens. I am not sure how to handle that, not wanting to lose the young ones, but at the same time, wanting to allow the gaggle to look after and raise their babies. Only Robbie, the border collie, chases the ravens off. The other livestock guardian dogs do not much bother with them, unfortunately. 

Two goose eggs pipped, that is the baby broke through the shell, but they have been in the shells too long now, and likely will die in the shell. It is usually not a good idea to liberate the hatchlings either, since they often die shortly after, especially if they are stuck to the shell or membrane and bleed from being released. There are a dozen more goose eggs still in the incubator due in a few days. Then hatching is pretty much over for this year. A hundred chicks and about 25 ducklings, plus 5 turkeys made it, and so far, just two little goslings. They are all living in the granary aka brooder house with two heat lamps (in case one light burns out in the night or anything else ). During the day, if it is good weather, the granary door is open with a wire cover in place to keep cats and ravens out, so the birds can get some fresh air and see outside. In a few weeks they will be transferred to separate pens, one for the waterfowl and the other for the chicks and turkeys. There they will remain until they are well on their way to adult hood and have gained the ability to fend off predators and watch for themselves, usually about at four months old. The males will be sent off to the processor at five months, and the females sold as laying hens or kept for breeding stock and laying hens for the farm. Then next year, the cycle will go on. That is the way of the hatch. 

The first hatch is underway. The cost of keeping birds is much less than buying hay for sheep and goats, and the eggs, chicks and adult bird sales far outweigh their upkeep. That is not so with the other animals on the farm, but at least something breaks even!
The incubators are not mine, but belong to two different friends. I am splitting the hatch with one friend and the other gets his pick of the birds, so it is a win win situation for me and for them. About 40 mixed duck eggs, Rouen, Saxony, Ancona and Khaki Campbell, plus Muscovy, and 15 Standard Bronze turkey eggs, 18 mixed geese, Tufted Toulouse/Embden/Pomeranian, and chicken, Ameraucana/Partridge and white Chantecler and a few others plus bantams are all in the incubator with the chicks due on April 26 and the waterfowl on May 3 and 5. Muscovy ducks take the longest to hatch, followed by the geese then ducks and chicks the shortest, at 21 days. Some of the hatch has been presold already. About the same time, or a bit later, the farm will be receiving an order from Performance Poultry with specialty birds so there will be waterfowl and chick brooders set up and ready to go. Three separate hatches will be made, with approximately 80 eggs per hatch. After that, if there is still interest, the hatch will be set by order only. Unclaimed birds will be raised and either sent to the processors or kept for layers or for sale as adult birds. In the summer the feed bill is very low because the birds free range and basically feed themselves. This year, the numbers of adult birds are too high for the small farm yard, so they will out to pasture with the sheep so the dogs can also watch over them. With the new fencing, it will be easier to pasture the birds. The fliers go where they wish anyhow, so basically it is the ducks and geese and a few of the chickens that will need supplemental grazing. The benefits of raising the birds are many from fresh pastured eggs to bug control to delicious dinners. And to think that when I began this venture three years ago, I had a terrible bird phobia and could not touch a bird, not even a newly hatched chick, let alone go in a coop. Now I can, though the odd time, I still get prickles on the back of my neck when the birds fly by my head. I actually like them now, especially the comical ducks. They are my favourites, hands down. The egg pictured is from a Standard Bronze turkey, and I even like them. 

If there is one thing that ducks love, it is water and with the warm temperatures, the snow is turning into puddles. The ducks love that! They are in their glory splashing  and dunking and playing in the water, but today, they were able to get some mud at the bottom, so they were extra ecstatic.
The big Rouen drake was out taking his ladies for a walk about. There were puddles everywhere to their absolute delight and of course, they sampled them all. The geese decided to venture further and went out to the driveway on the other side of the fence, but the snow has not turned into puddles there yet, so they ambled back. The goose sold as the male Saddleback Pomeranian is female and one of the females is a male. That was quit evident today, because geese love to mate in shallow water. The gander from last year did not want to share any of the ladies, though, and quickly turfed the newcomer out. The one that was supposed to be the gander is nesting, but she will have to relocate because where she wants to be is not a safe place out of the elements. In a few days, the barrel nests will be able to be moved and she will have a great place to lay her eggs and have little ones. It is so wonderful to enjoy the warm temperatures after that bitterly cold winter. Yup, spring has sprung.

Before coming to this farm, I had never really been around any geese. My father loved roast goose best of all, or at least up there with roast moose. Goose - moose - maybe there was something to that.

My first geese were 5 Embden goslings a few weeks old. When I picked them up, I asked why they looked different and the seller told me that she did have a Tufted Toulouse gander too. Hence, the babies were half Toulouse and half Embden. Embden geese are noted for their unfriendly temperaments and watchdog like behaviour. They would just as soon hiss and bite and flap than be friendly, and even though they were lovingly raised by hand, they simply never did become tame. At least, though, they never attempted to bite me, well, until mating that was and then it was only the one big gander.

There were two males and three females of that group and the females made lovely nests and fought over them. Eventually they moved their nests and then fought over whose those were too. I had also acquired two female American Buff geese. One never did nest, but the other nested, stayed on her nest, did not mess with the Embden girls and hatched five lovely babies. The Embden nests grew stale and the eggs rotted due to constant moving of the eggs, and they were abandoned when the other goose hatched her brood. Then the entire flock cared for and protected those little ones. They quickly grew and by the summer's end were indistinguishable from their parents, more or less. The two American Buff geese mated with a lanky, skinny gander and he stayed with them, but the offspring were most likely the big gander's. All the geese but the Buffs and that gander went to the processor and came home wrapped and frozen.

Then last fall, a gander and two geese joined the three remaining ones on the farm. These are Pomeranian Saddlebacks, noted for their quieter natures. The skinny, lanky gander filled out nicely by winter and became a very handsome dude with lovely grey and white mottled feathers and a tuft on his noggin. He and his two ladies have stayed bonded and the Pomeranians have also bonded. This spring then, it should be relatively easy to separate them for breeding, the Buffs with the pretty cross gander and the Pomeranians together.

Although I have read over and again that geese are strictly vegetarian, their behaviour evidences something different. They love raw meat. When the chickens are given bones to pick, the geese are the first to strip the tender bits off. Winter feeding is harder. They do get oats, wheat and barley, alfalfa and grass hay and grit and shells, plus the occasional vegetable scraps. But in the summer, they hardly eat any grain, instead feeding on grass and bugs, worms, mice, and whatever else is in the grass, plus dirt. I imagine they get their minerals from the dirt, plus the grit, because they eat quite a bit, especially in certain pockets in the yard. A waterfowl pool is on the agenda for this summer. All that has to happen is to locate some clay, and there  is building going on locally, so that might be easy. It will line the natural pond.

I really enjoy the geese, especially watching them bathe. They will stick their heads in a bucket of water to clean their eyes and come out frozen and if given a chance for a bath, they will enter the water, which freezes to their feathers and then preen for an hour following. They are graceful and flap their wings to move the water down their feathers.

And, I must say, the geese from the summer are most delicious. Thank you to the Creator for making geese and to the geese for the honour of their lives.

This is day 5 of extreme cold temperatures. The ducks have wads of poop frozen to their butts, because when they sleep, they poop and it freezes instantly to their feathers. Bathing in the icy water does not thaw the poop enough to remove it. If the wad grows too large, the ducks have to be submerged in warm water, brought from the house, to thaw the poop, or it could obstruct further poops. Gross! The chickens roost up higher, so they do not have that issue. The geese do, though, but not as bad as the ducks. Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to go all the way up to minus 25, whoo hoo. I will definitely have to bring warm water for the ducks several times to thaw those bottoms.

I noticed the fat tailed Karakul sheep, Dora, has been off by herself the last two days. I did not see anything amiss with her, but today there was some blood near her tail so I grabbed her and had a very close inspection. Her tail, that is the inside of it, was missing - gone!. The skin was flapping without the tail. It is not the way the dogs or coyotes normally would eat a tail and has me puzzled. I think the livestock guardian puppies must have eaten it somehow from the top to the inside, but why would she have allowed that to happen? Dora is a submissive sheep. So I moved Dora in with the Icelandics, away from the pups. I did not see any blood on the pups either, which is strange. I am miffed and so sorry for Dora. How painful that must have been, whatever it was, that ate her tail while she still had it on her. Now, what do I do with the remainder?

Oh, yes, and the rest of the animals are doing OK. The three Blue Faced Leiscester sheep have been treated for pneumonia, but one was still shivering today. I will have to call the vet again and see what I should expect from the very expensive drug he gave her. The other Dorset ram lamb that had diarrhea was treated at his farm prior to his arrival, but maybe he was missed. I have been in a dialogue with the previous breeder. If he kept good records, he might be able to tell me more. I will have to take a fecal culture to the vet and find out what his problem is and get it fixed so the other sheep do not contract it. He and his wife are confined to a small enclosure pen away from the sheep, but the llamas are on the other side. They do not have fence contact though.

And, the rest of the birds, the guineas and other chickens are just trying to stay warm, which is not easy when there is no let up in the frigid cold this week. Brrrrr.

I love to watch the geese and ducks. Their love of water is the most fun, after their conversations. The female ducks are the talkers. They bob their heads and wag their tails and chatter to other ducks. The ducks have a winter routine. They move around in the morning looking for food and water. The water is frozen, so they eat some of the fresh snow. There is not much interesting to eat in winter, unless I bring in some kitchen scraps. They are particularly looking for something green, but in the interim, they do nibble on the grass in the hay. It is not quite like fresh new grass, but it is better than nothing. Their dirt pile is now frozen so they will have to rely on commercial grit  and oyster shells. The geese, ducks, guineas and chickens all eat the shells, mostly for calcium, but also for some grit, which helps them grind and digest the grain. The highlight of their day is when the water arrives. They simply cannot wait to have a bath, but with only two tubs for a flock of geese, waiting is sometimes hard. Maybe there is room for two? Ah, yes, there is!

Ducks and geese are hardier than chickens by far. Some chicken breeds, those without large combs and wattles (the hangy down things from their noses) fare better in the cold. Large combs are subject to frost bite and freezing, then turn black and fall off. How painful that is for the chickens. One breed of duck, the Muscovy, has large caruncles, or red hangy down or puffed up warts around its face and eyes, and that area is most delicate and subject to freezing as well. Generally the other duck breeds and geese are very winter hardy and prefer to be out on the snow than cooped up in a building.
At the Fat Ewe Farm, the ducks and geese are housed together in a long hoop shelter, 16 by 8 by 6 feet high. It is covered with two tarps and the ground edge is shored with spoiled hay from the lambs next door, insulating the ground level area where the birds stay. In very cold weather, they tuck their legs up by their sides and rest their down covered bellies on the ground, nearly impervious to the cold. The females are better at tucking their heads under their wings than the males, but both will do it. Even when it is forty below, they want to get their whole bodies into the water for a bath. The droplets freeze on their feathers and they look like little ice men when they emerge. Then they spend the next hour preening, that is spreading the oil from their glands through their wet feathers. It is the preening that waterproofs them and weather proofs them and is very important in keeping them warm. If they do not have the opportunity to bathe, then they must at least have a bucket in which they can stick their heads or their eyes and nostrils can become pasty and dry. They will flick water on their bodies with their heads, similar to bathing, but not quite.

Aside from the water, they need to eat something. At this farm, they are fed whole oats, barley and wheat and dirt, plus oyster shells for calcium. The dirt is collected from the forest and is full of microbes and roots. They will spend hours rooting through it and gobble up whatever tasty morsels they find, along with the dirt. They do get minerals from the dirt. It is good to have the soil tested to see what they could ingest and what might be lacking. From time to time, they get lettuce and kitchen scraps and they do eat the meat that the dogs leave on their bones. People told me geese were strictly vegetarian, however; they are not. They will eat bugs, slugs, and worms, plus they do not mind nibbling at meat as well. Winter is hard for the waterfowl, because a good portion of their natural diet is grass, so I also feed them hay. They will eat the leaves and grass in the hay, especially any dried dandelions, which they seek out and gobble up rapidly. The roughage helps to keep their digestive tract healthy too, but they are getting roughage from the whole grains and the dirt/leaves/roots too.

I find the ducks very comical with their antics. They have become quite tame for the most part and do not move much when I walk amongst them. They also herd well and after one attempt to move them, they know where to go on their own. The geese have separate quarters, but they sleep with the ducks in the big house, along with two or three chickens and sometimes, if it is warmer, the guinea hens.Just a few duck or two geese could easily live in a dog house for the winter. Duck eggs are three times more nutritious than chicken eggs, but they do not generally lay in the winter in a normal situation. For that, they would need a heated coop and supplemental daylight. I believe in allowing their natural rhythms dictate their laying schedule because it gives their bodies a chance to rest and rejuvenate for spring. Ah, spring...just another six months away. Winter is a time of survival for the waterfowl, and for me.

Travis is unloading one of the Pomeranian Saddleback geese. These are not show geese, but locally bred and raised farm geese. They are valued for their quiet temperaments, so compared to the nasty Embden gander that lives on the farm, they will be a welcome addition. They are easily sexed too, which is a treat. The females have a grey head only and small grey saddle on their backs, while the males have grey heads and neck with the grey blending in to the more noticeable large grey saddle on their backs. Both sexes have blue eyes, not as bright blue as the Embden geese, but a very pretty blue. We have acquired a trio, two geese and gander of this breed. Next spring, they will be separated into pens, the Embdens, Pomeranian Saddlebacks, and the American Buffs, to breed true. There is no American Buff gander at present, so the Tufted Toulouse will have to take his place. He is quite a fancier of the Buff girls anyhow and I am sure would love the job. There are some pairs of Embdens, too, which will be kept for breeding, but the rest will be Thanksgiving dinner. Five babies were hatched by the American Buff goose, from her own eggs, but it appears that the mating was likely with the Embden gander. These will also be sold for meat geese. Unlike shoes and ladies, a farm can have too many geese!