Geese
can make great adoptive parents for orphaned goslings or ducklings.
While we have no scientific backup for this statement, customers and
friends have had great success with introducing baby birds to their
geese for adoption. There are a few elements that each of the stories
have that might have contributed.
A
customer of ours wrote us with her goose story. Her two female
Pilgrim geese were trying to hatch eggs, but were having no luck.
Wanting to give them something to care for, she found some ducklings
at her local feed store and brought them home to her geese. The two
took to the ducklings immediately. In this instance the mother geese
were broody and their instincts were primed for taking care of
babies.
Another
person who wrote us had inherited a pair of geese with their
property. They also brought in some ducklings. To their surprise, it
was the male goose that took to them. He struggled to get to the
ducklings until the family released them into the same pen. Once he
was united with them, he started taking care of them as if they were
his own. It is not uncommon for males to care for baby birds and are
in fact programmed to help the mother in raising their offspring. In
this case he was more excited than the female about the prospect of
taking care of young ones and he took the initiative in the adoption.
Wild
geese have been known to adopt as well. The Huffington Post once
covered such an event. An expecting mother goose’s nest burned and
she lost her eggs. A month later she adopted some abandoned goslings
that someone had found in their pool. To read the full story, click
here.
Of
course, ducklings and goslings are not the only babies geese have
been known to adopt. Another couple that wrote us talked about how
their pair of Brown Chinese geese adopted an orphaned group of baby
squirrels!
Geese
will adopt older birds, too. They do not have to be day-old birds.
An adoptive goose would probably take goslings up to four weeks of
age!
It
is highly unlikely that ducks will adopt, the only success stories we
have heard were of geese doing the adopting.
If
you do decide to introduce babies to your goose, we suggest going
through an introductory process. The safest would be to have a fence
between the babies and adults and see what happens. If the adult
geese are good candidates, they will come to the fence and call to
the ducklings or goslings on the other side. At that point you can
put the one or two geese in with the babies and observe them. If
there is no aggression by an adult, then you probably have a new
family. If there is aggression, remove that goose and see if there
are any others that have an interest in the babies.
Keep
in mind that while these stories were all successful, not all
attempts of encouraging an adoption are. It depends entirely on the
goose involved. It helps to have them in the right frame of mind such
as those that are already sitting on eggs, but it is not a definitive
way to determine if a goose will adopt or not. Adoptions have
occurred when the adults were not broody at all.
Adoptions
can be very rewarding for you and your birds. The adults can raise
those babies they always wanted, the babies are being raised by the
best means available and you have much less work if your goose adopts
the babies! Just pray your goose doesn’t adopt a baby skunk!
