Goslings and chicks

A mother goose hatched out some goslings a few weeks ago so we put them in our brooder where we raise day old chicks. We had an order of broiler chicks arrive and tried putting them all with the goslings. To our delight they all took well to each other and the young chicks even would huddle around the goslings for warmth. Very cute!

You might wonder why we don't just leave the goslings with their mother. Well, a couple years ago we did that. We had a half dozen or so goslings hatch out and the big male goose wound up clumsily stepping on all but one and killing them. And in fact the only remaining one died just this spring. It was a male and as he aged he would challenge his father. This year their battles grew more fierce. Finally, they had a fight that injured the younger male critically and I had to put it down. So that goofy goose is actually responsible for the deaths of all that years babies!

With that experience we decided to not let that happen again. When these little ones are much bigger we will introduce them back to the the flock.

We just had another baby goose hatch out the other day and it is now with it's older siblings in this brooder. So far we have a total of 4 goslings.