So I have noticed this domestic white goose for the last 6 months or so hanging out at a local Farm on my way home. It is the only white goose and it hangs out in their corn fields and along the power lines and a dead-end road. He has been hanging out with a flock of Canada geese. Today I noticed all the wild geese have flown south for the winter. So poor mr. Domestic goose is left by himself.
I approached him but he seems pretty wary of people. We do have quite a few foxes in this area and the occasional fairly rare coyote so I worry he will get eaten.
Would you throw him some goose food occasionally? Or try to catch him and relocate him? Or ignore him and let him fend for himself?
I will check with the farm where he has been hanging out to see if they actually own him before doing anything. But my impression is he is actually a stray.
He’d probably rip your face off. Geese are terrible people.
Big goose fan here! The goose (or gander) will primarily eat grasses, but you can buy a bag of poultry or waterfowl pellets at the feed store or TSC for under $10. Leaving some daily would be a kindness to a domestic goose. I’m guessing it has a water source if it’s been there for so long, but they need water deep enough to dunk their heads to keep their mouth and nostrils clean.
If it doesn’t belong to the farmer, you might try posting something in your area in case someone has a small flock and would adopt this one. They’re pretty easy to catch, and really do better in pairs or groups.
Contact your game warden for more advice if you can’t find it’s owner.
Ask the sheriff’s office who he is in your area.
Here his office is in the sheriff’s office in the court house.
I have seen Snow Geese hang around with the Canada Geese, could your new friend be one of those?
She was picking at things is a cut corn field. There is a big hill with lots of grass that the geese frequently hang out on. There is a nice sized pond but I will expect that will freeze at some point.
I will pick him up some pellets on the way home. I board with somebody that runs a rescue. I know she has placed horses, minis, donkeys, sheep, goats, ducks, rabbits, and chickens. She may know of somebody that would take a goose. She would also courtesy list him/her for me.
@trubandloki Not a snow goose. I think since he is a domestic goose is why he didn’t leave when the rest of the flock went on their way for winter. My guess is he doesn’t fly or doesn’t fly well. Probably has no instinct to fly south either
Maybe you need a big cage trap and a live goose as decoy to trap him. I imagine catching a wary goose would be a challenge.
Yeah I haven’t figured that part out yet. I caught a tired homing pigeon one time with a blanket. I just threw it over him.
I was thinking if I recruit a few friends we can somehow herd him with pair of tarps, throw one of the tarps over him and stick him in a dog crate for transport. If I can get him to associate me with food he may become less wary.
Instead of a dog crate (they beat their wings against the sides and can easily hurt themselves), the best transport is a 50# burlap or plastic feed sack. Cut one of the corners off. His head goes through there. Enclose the rest of his body in the sack (including legs) and tie it closed with a piece of baling twine. Easy, and it keeps the goose calm and the poop contained. I’m sure there’s YouTube videos that show the process.
P.S. The only real way a goose can hurt you is if they hit you with their wing. It can break your arm, so that’s what you want to be wary of. You have to grab the bird from above and hug the wings against their body. Bites may sting, but they can’t do any real damage.
Thanks for being worried about this guy!
Aw, poor thing! Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help!
He will be easier to catch at night. However, Geese can be aggressive so be careful.
I would ask the farmer if they know about the goose (I’m sure they’ve noticed) and have any plans for it before buying a bag of feed for it.
If you do go to buy feed, what you’ll want is an All Flock pellet usually. That’s for both chickens and water fowl. Unless your stores carry a specific water fowl feed, not all do, but they most all carry All Flock.
Yes I had one beat the crap out of me when I was a kid. I just wanted to be friends!
BO married a yachtie. He’s doing well trying to be a farmer. Once (in an early year) he brought home 2 geese to add to the menagerie. Horses, dogs, cats, pot bellied pig, goat, chickens, somebody else’s ducks and a rabbit. Tons of lesson families. I think she wouldn’t let him put the truck in Park.
There is the original barn and farmhouse on this property. Part of the property is corn. I don’t think the people that live in the farmhouse are the ones planting/harvesting the corn. I think that it is another farmer that lives about a mile away. That farmer has cows and sells hay. He plants on a few different properties.
The farmhouse nearest where the goose is doesn’t have any farm animals. There is no fencing. I think they lease the field to the corn/cow farmer. That is why I think that goose is a stray.
I am going to check with the farmhouse and the other house on that street to see if they know anything about him/her.
I will take pictures if I see goose at lunch today.
I have nothing to add except thank you for being worried about the little guy! Please keep us updated.
Keep trying to find out more, but also realize that maybe the goose is coping fine and has her place in the world figured out, even if it may not be what we think it should be.
Some times, when we try to help, we don’t really do other than add to the animal’s troubles and stress.
Ok if it is truly helping, not so much if it is because we think they need help, but maybe they don’t?
Once we found a big buck that had jumped a barbed wire fence and hit with a hind leg, two top wires wrapped around it and he hung up by it.
The barbwire didn’t do any direct damage, but being hung there for who knows how long did, he was alive, but barely.
We got him loose, dragged him into the stock trailer, hauled him to the barn and put him in a stall.
The vet was coming and he was game to help try to get the buck going.
We put a bale of straw to help prop him, the vet lined buck with the door, so if he could get up he would go out, not feel trapped and bounce off the walls in there.
He got everyone out of the stall and told me to hold the buck’s head for him so he could start an IV, but both of us to stay on the other side of the bale and if the buck at all started to move, run for the door and he would be right behind me and leave the buck alone and quiet.
Then we would re-evaluate if to go back in and do more for the buck.
While I was holding buck, he had huge antlers, one of those came in my hands.
I knew they shed antlers, but for a moment I was thinking I did something wrong and that was going to kill him and felt absolutely terrible, until realizing what had happened.
Well, he just was not rallying and vet gave him all he could, buck was still alive, so we left him alone.
We kept checking on him and, right before vet left, when we checked again, buck had died.
We then didn’t know if we would have been better off shooting him, not adding to buck’s misery by handling him as much as we did, even if it was trying to “save” him.
As the humans we are, we can’t help trying to help, is who we are.
We do need to try to help and never quit trying, just be smart about it, as OP is doing, taking her time, since goose is not in direct harm as of now.
Yeah, but a domestic goose is not analagous to a wild goose, like your deer would be. Domestic fowl often don’t live well as wild fowl. Like all the ducks people set free on ponds thinking they’ll be fine, and they wind up dead because they can’t find food in the winter and can’t simply fly away like a wild duck.
Honestly, I despise geese. Every one I’ve met has hated me, and I’ve been bitten by the dang things :lol: Having said that, if I saw a clearly domestic goose wandering around out here, I’d still try to catch it and pass it on to one of those weird folds that actually likes the hissy things.
OP thank you for caring. I hope this story has a happy outcome.
