Sexing Geese

  • 7 Replies
  • 2951 Views
*

Surferchick

  • New Member
  • *
  • Location: Cornwall
  • 20
Sexing Geese
« on: December 01, 2012, 14:27 »
Hi

I have nine geese that were hatched out in April/May this year and I wanted to know if anyone has any advice on how to tell which sex they are?

They are Ebdem or Ebdem/Toulouse cross and I plan to keep three of them going into next year - two females and one male.

Any advice much appreciated as I don't want to get it wrong and keep three males  ::)

Thanks

El

*

darkbrowneggs

  • Experienced Member
  • ***
  • Location: Worcestershire
  • 244
    • Dark Brown Eggs
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2012, 15:23 »
I keep Auto-sexing Geese, so the males are hatched yellow and grow up white and the females grey and grow up brown or pied. 

But I have noticed a slight difference in tone of call.  The males being a bit higher pitched and the females a  lower more sonorous tone.  Also the males tend to be on guard a bit more so their necks are up more often whereas the females rely on the males to watch so spend more time eating.  Again a bit difficult to be certain  :( 

Best of luck anyway  :)
I love my traditional clean legged English Cuckoo Marans

*

Surferchick

  • New Member
  • *
  • Location: Cornwall
  • 20
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2012, 18:04 »
Thanks, will look out for those things as think it may be a process of elimination!

I know one of them is a definate male as he keeps charging and hissing at the dog! Dog looks quite confused by it all  :)

*

themagicaltoad1

  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Location: Milton Keynes
  • 985
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2012, 20:36 »
I had 2 of these lovely geese, now gone to live with Kate and her ducks. Apparently they are best sexed as newly hatched or while still very young, after that it get hard to tell their "bits" apart.

*

Kate and her Ducks

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Location: Shropshire
  • 5318
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2012, 18:47 »
I was also interested to see if there was an easy answer to this due to the afore mentioned geese. I have started to think that Lily might be a boy as she always seems to be keeping watch over Kevin who is fractionally smaller :D
Will wait to see what spring brings. 8)
Be like a duck. Calm on the surface but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

*

themagicaltoad1

  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Location: Milton Keynes
  • 985
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2012, 19:22 »
Lily was sexed by the farmer when we bought her, he was certain she was a girl. We insisted on a female as we hadn't got a clue what sex Kevin was and didn't want to end up with 2 ganders. Lily has always been the braver one of the 2, possibly because her first few weeks were with a lot of other geese. Hope they're still getting on well with you.

*

themagicaltoad1

  • Senior Member
  • ****
  • Location: Milton Keynes
  • 985
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2012, 21:27 »
I've just remembered, we mentioned to the farmer that Kevin had a couple of odd black feathers on his/ her back when young, he told us only the females have them, (Lily also had them). It might help with sexing yours surferchick.

*

Surferchick

  • New Member
  • *
  • Location: Cornwall
  • 20
Re: Sexing Geese
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2012, 21:36 »
Thanks for all the replies

Have managed to sex all the geese last weekend so now know what we are doing - I think  ;)

Will tell you what we did as it might be helpful - started off by using process of elimination, we watched to see which was the most dominant and aggressive goose/gander (this was the one that had previously tried to charge the dog!) We took him away, tagged his leg and moved him into our stable.

We did this a few times as, as soon as we removed the dominant male another male stepped in to take his role. we also identified two birds that we thought were definate females.

We then noticed after a few times that when my hubby was holding the goose/gander in front of him, supporting it under it's legs, so that I could tag it's leg, that the males had 'something' protruding from it - which is why we knew it was a male (if you get my drift).

We then used this method to check the birds we had left, which was very quick and easy so we could tell for definite. We re-checked the two we had tagged as female and we were right.

I think you could use this 2nd method if you only had two birds and whilst it is quite difficult to explain, I can assure you it was really easy, quick and the geese didn't even blink.

Hope this helps - any questions pls ask and will try and help further.

El


xx
sexing african geese

Started by jobson336 on The Hen House

3 Replies
7387 Views
Last post August 22, 2011, 22:09
by jobson336
xx
Geese

Started by skyblue on The Hen House

4 Replies
2021 Views
Last post February 07, 2008, 21:52
by richyrich7
xx
Would the geese have done it?

Started by Jane-M on The Hen House

6 Replies
3057 Views
Last post July 09, 2011, 17:30
by evie2
xx
Geese

Started by Nails on The Hen House

4 Replies
1834 Views
Last post September 21, 2009, 19:04
by Nails
 

Page created in 1.381 seconds with 29 queries.

Powered by SMFPacks Social Login Mod
Powered by SMFPacks SEO Pro Mod |