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carey1950_gw

Do Geese kill chickens?

carey1950
15 years ago

I think my Buff Geese have killed two chickens and wounded one. I find the chickens with the geese pecking at them, blood all over the chickens heads and their head feathers plucked out, eyes plucked and the two that died also had skin missing on their backs. The chicken that lived was hiding behind a wood pile when I found her. She is now separated from the rest of the flock. The geese have also broken the wing of a Muscovy duck. Any info on this would be appreciated, I can't find any info on the net.

Comments (15)

  • brendasue
    15 years ago

    They may very well have. We have all three, and they kinda avoid each other except when we feed them. They'll pick on the others particularly if they are in a small area, nesting time, breeding time, or just being territorial. If you can't seperate them, then allow things for them to get into & around away from the bully(ies).
    Brendasue

  • mersiepoo
    15 years ago

    Oh, wow! Thanks for that info...I just ordered the 'homesteaders delight' assortment from McMurrray..and it includes geese! :(

    I'm so sorry to hear about your poor chickens, Carey! :(

  • velvet_sparrow
    15 years ago

    I think you'll have the best luck with all your birds getting along if they are raised together and are used to being handled by you, it can make them a lot calmer.

    Enjoy your birds, and please post pics here of the babies when they arrive, I'd love to see them! :)

    Velvet ~:>

  • laturcotte1
    15 years ago

    I absolutely think they could.

    I have two female roman tufted geese and wouldn't trade them for anything BUT not sure if I would get more. They were being raised for the pot so we took them. They were just a few weeks old so we didn't know if they were male/female.

    We hand raised them, they followed me everywhere, me finding them dandelions, small insects, tasty grass to eat all that a mother would do. I would sit with them every day talking and petting them. June is wonderful and stays friendly no matter what. Betty (who we thought was a Benny because she was so dominant) is another story. She will take the hide off the dogs if she could catch them. They both lay eggs and when they have them I have to fight literally, I have the broken skin and bruises to prove it, to clean their area, feed/water them. When they don't have eggs Betty can tolerate me but barely and hates everyone else, we have volunteers that refuse to go in their yard.

    I guess it would depend on the "personality" of the goose whether it would be safe with other poultry. Yes, June has chased the dogs on more than one occasion but when close stops, Betty will slam right into them flapping and biting. Something else just came to mind, I have small dogs and they have small stuffed animals for babies, they leave them all over the yard. If June sees one she goes in head down and she sort of tastes it, picks it up and pushes it around, Betty goes in head down, hissing, grabbing and tossing it. Big character difference! June would make a wonderful mother I don't think Betty would.

    Like any animal you have to know their tolerance, I love them both the same I just wear gloves with Betty :)

  • stephgoosegirl
    14 years ago

    i've been reading your posts and thought you might help. we have a male and female goose and 2 male ducks which grew up together and were our babies. we just introduced a new female duck...she was the sweetest and lays daily. eventually they killed her. we're trying to get past the emotion and figure out what to do with the remaining original four birds.....is there any way to curb the agression...did they do it maliciously or was that normal?...any thoughts. thanks a lot.....

  • simpleme
    14 years ago

    Stephgoosegirl,
    your drakes didn't intentionaly kill the hen. Drakes are brutal breeders. And having two of them with only one hen, she had no chance of surviving the romantic attentions.
    It is recommended that you put 1 drake with 10 to 12 hens...I've had drakes drown a hen in our pond when trying to breed.
    See if you can rehome one of your drakes and get the remaining one about 4or5 hens and all will be fine....

  • doninalaska
    14 years ago

    We recently introduced chickens to our geese (Chinese Weeders) and watched them closely because I had heard that geese will kill chickens if there is water nearby by keeping them wet all the time. We were surprised! The rooster dominates the geese and only allows them out to feed when all the hens are safely roosted. The geese are terribly noisy and I will get rid of them if I can find a good home.

  • calliope
    14 years ago

    I used to keep a perpetual pair of geese (one goose/one gander) and they had separate quarters than the chickens, but occasionally I'd shoo them in the chicken coop at night when I shut them all down, and they got on just fine with the chickens with no aggression. I'm not saying this didn't happen, but I'm trying to figure out how a goose can pluck out a chicken's eyes with their rounded bills. I've seen roos do that to each other, however.

  • so42gob4dawn_yahoo_com
    14 years ago

    It's possible.
    But it's more likely the chickens are killing each other. Geese would flog the chickens with their wings and bite, but rarely will they leave bloody wounds. The geese may pull feathers out of the chicken which would lead to a bigger problem. Chickens are bad to peck at anything they notice different on another chicken. If the chicken loses a tuft of feathers and has a few drop of blood, the other chickens will peck at the blood and probably pull small feathers out (which they often swallow) which causes more drops of blood which leads to more pecking. Eventually you have a weak injured or dead chicken from the pecking of its peers.

  • woodrose711
    14 years ago

    I have 11 five week old Pilgrim geese and 24 four week old mixed batch of Partridge Rocks and Silver Laced Wyandottes. They were kept separate from day old to 3-4 weeks old when I moved them out to the barn. The geese were older, so they went about a week sooner. They have been quite aggressive to the chicks, attacking by grabbing where the neck joins the body, I guess you'd call it the scruff. I can't keep them in the same pen as it gets quite violent, and I also free-range, so when they happen to get too close they still attack. The chicks scurry into the wood's edge. I'm sure it's competition for food and my attention, as the geese try to gobble up the chicken scratch. The geese follow me everywhere, it's sometimes a pain to work outside, but I love them and treat them gently, so they're getting way more attention than the chicks, who are happy to scratch around the yard and woods. Since they are so youg, do you think they'll outgrow this stuff, or should I also expect dead chickens? I'm dissapointed and worried.

  • s_oliver_warwick_ac_uk
    13 years ago

    Ducks are malicious killers. Personally I have created a crack squad of chickens and geese in order to quash the militant uprising of communist ducklings who will propagate this deadly fascist regime!

    My name is Billy Big Balls, I LOVE CHICKENS.

    P.S and BABIES!

  • Margaret Cruser
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    I think my gander attacked one of my laying Buffy hens. Her head was featherless her face is swollen bloodied and I cleans out her wounds. She in a separate cage in my egg house/hospital.

    She just went into the goose house and Larry my saddleback attacked went after her I broke it up. Her eyes are still intact but swollen. I have a few rooster that tried to protect her they were killed. Should I pen the ganders together? My femal geese I have around twenty get along fine, but my ganders (5) are mean they grew up with all the ducks and chickens. I hand feed them hold them they follow me around all my birds Larry is about two along with my Africans my toulsse and buff gees Roman ruffs are a year old they all get along. They started lsying eggs some out side in pens and some in the goose house should I take them away? Will that stop the aggression?

  • mitchellcustomhomes
    7 years ago

    We have a dozen young geese. 8 of them are two weeks older than the others and they have been so incredibly unpleasant to the younger geese. They grab their necks; chase them from water, away from food, grazing. When they were small, I was keeping them in the chicken house so I had to make a separate area for the 4 smaller geese or the older ones would just beat on them all night. Now that they can spend the night outside in the larger, secure pen, the smaller ones can escape the older geese and so it's a great improvement. The older ones are somewhat less cruel now, and some are actually fine. I'm pretty sure if we got some chickens now, that the geese would be horrible to them. These geese are all intended for the table, as will be the next batch of meat chickens. A farm down the road from us has geese, ducks, and chickens all housed together and sharing a very large pasture together. But, I think they were pretty much all raised together. Life is too short to spend all your livestock time protecting some of them from the others. Too busy protecting everybody from the foxes!

  • Lisa Mack
    3 years ago

    we hand raised our male and female geese from 12 weeks of age, they arrived to hand raised flock of 2 ducks and 4 chooks all got on fabulously, all have great personalities and very friendly, lately the male goose must be coming into breeding season, attached a chook, she wouldnt go near him again to the point she would hind in our horse shelter rather than come to bed in the coop, a week later attacked another chook always at the wing arae, then woke yesterday morning to a dead chook that had been attached at the neck, another kill right in front of me tpday, the goose hunted the chook out of the horse shelter then killed it at the neck area, thats it the goose is penned no roaming with the others, its going to be re homed before I kill it myself.

  • Dawn Dino
    3 years ago

    my two female sebastopol/pilgrim geese have attacked a chicken....my chicken are reared by hand and I adopted the geese...I found both attacked my rhode island red she was a egg layer....and then my Jersey giant the next day, she was egg layer too...I didnt know if the geese were jealous but the egg production has been interrupted by this behavior. I have separated those chicken as they are healing but I do not want the geese to do this a third time...