emden geese picking on girl

[oouche]

hi
i have a flock of 11 emden geese the whole flock picks on 1 girl goose she still eats ok as on grass but as soon as she approaches the flock they drive her off if any geese aproach her on there own the flock drive the goose away from her any idea why this is occuring
and is there anything i can do to stop this behaviour
do you think the flock will eventualy kill the lone one
she follows the flock around and looks very sad
the flock is 5 male 6 female

[littlefeathers]

Hi Oouche, I have no idea whatsoever about keeping geese but a silly thought entered my head so i thought i'd share it with you regarding your 'billy no mates' goose.
Do geese pair off into couples, and keep the same mate, maybe she's the only one without a partner
and maybe see her as a threat.
Its just a 'woman' thing light hearted thought.

[duckmad]

hi little feathers is right. As far as I know geese pair up for life and even after one of the geese dies the other one may not pair up again. You have two choices, either take the odd goose out or remove some of the ganders, if you remove ganders the ones left will still cover the odd ducks so you will still have fertile eggs and it will give the odd goose some company

[littlefeathers]

Blimey, i actually got something right and there was me thinking i was talking a load of turkey lol ;D
I would love to have her if she were local.
Seems me and her could be on the same wave length
rrrr poor little goosey.

[oouche]

thanks
little feathers and duckmad
any one know the usual ratio of goose to gander
is it 2 or 3 to a gander and any idea when they start to lay is it the same as chickens 14 hours of daylight
and how do i collect eggs, do geese lay like chickens or do they build a nest first do i need to provide a nest box for them to lay in or do i search the field for the eggs

many thanks again for your help

[duckmad]

hi I have just looked in a poultry book that covers geese and it says that the ratio should be one gander to two geese but he will cover three. The geese will lay in straw and cover the eggs until there are about 15 or 20 laid and then will sit, watch out for the ganders though as once the goose starts laying he may become nasty towards strangers although they will rarely attack the hand that feeds them. They should be starting to lay now if they havent already. if you want to incubate the egss they need collecting at least once a day if not let the goose get on with it, hope this is of some help