Geese on Guard

Some friends gave us a rooster last weekend. Handsome feller, but so far hasn’t really meshed with the gang, so to speak.

But onto more important news, we have now had the geese in the paddock with the meat birds for two nights, and have had the same count of meat birds both mornings. It seems that the guard geese are in fact, guarding the chickens.

Not terribly surprising, they are big and noisy and they have an attitude with anything that they think they can push around. They’ll come hissing at the kids if the kids don’t run and chase them. They can put out a pretty impressive decibel level as well.

So guard geese are a definite sustain.

In other chicken related news, our egg counts are down. Only 17 today. We were getting at least two dozen a day for a couple weeks there. We think the reason is they might be going into their third molt. This would also explain why their yard is covered with feathers..

Not to worry, they’ll bounce back in a week or two when the molt is over, just in time for the days to get short and the nights to get long. Fortunately, we tried to choose breeds that continue to lay through the winter, so hopefully we will still maintain some egg production even in the dark wet months.

That’s all for tonight. Good night.