Will an older goose pair with a younger one?

[Southernchickens]

I have one male chinese gander that is a year or maybe two years old and I want to find him a mate. If I buy a baby female and raise it will the male accept it as its mate? The male is the only goose I have and it lives with 17 ducks right now. Last spring it tried to mate with a duck a couple of times. So it needs a female.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My Gander[Emden] lives only with Muscovy ducks, actually was hatched by one and mates with the ducks also ,he's very happy.

 

[Southernchickens]

My gander is happy with the ducks but I want to find him a goose mate. I may want to hatch some geese eggs too.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It might be hard for him to accept another goose especially if he is bonded with one of your ducks.

 

[sourland]

As a kid I had human imprinted gander that was my pet. When he was about 3, I bought six goslings. He immediately adopted them and rejected me. One of the goslings grew up to be his mate (the others we ate) and they raised many broods of young. I guess it depends upon the goose, but I'm betting he would accept the female as his mate.

 

[zazouse]

Quote:
This is very true.

i raised my geese with a bunch of chicks i hatched and there is one goose that stays with the chickens all the time now, he or she chats with the other gesse but is rarely seen hanging out with them.

I raised a rooster with some ducks and he has nothing to do with chickens , he's a duck lover .

So ya may end up with a lonely girl .

 

[Miss Lydia]

well give it a try, if it doesn't work out then you'll decide whats next.

 

[Olive Hill]

Yes, you can pair older and younger geese. In fact, some people purposefully pair older ganders with younger geese as it's thought to improve fertility. My flock has had a handful of mating shakes ups just in the past year and they all fare through it just fine. They'll have a number more next year and the next and the next and the next. Every time a batch of ganders gets processed a number of geese lose their mates. When a goose or geese are sold, someone loses their mate. If I bring in another goose or geese from outside the farm the whole pecking order is upset, new match ups always emerge as they reestablish the gaggle hierarchy. Geese aren't bonded for life, they don't sulk and die of a broken heart when they lose their mate. They move along just fine, reestablish their place in the group and find a new mate or mates. IME birds of any kind -- chickens, ducks, geese, etc -- will establish inter-species relationships when sufficient same-species relationships aren't available to them, but always quickly revert when those same-species relationships do become available. A lone duck will hang out with and live "happily" as part of a flock of chickens if he doesn't have other ducks with whom to group himself or if he is exiled from an existing group of ducks for whatever reason, but if you add ducks or for whatever reason he is re-accepted into an existing group he'll happily abandon his chickens to join those of his same-species, for example. And though I'm sure exceptions to the rule exist, I'd wager a good sum they're quite rare.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I always thought geese mated for life, and had also heard that they can die of a broken heart, I guess thats humanizing them to some degree.

 

[Cottage Rose]

Quote:
Domestic geese are NOT monogamous.
When the breeding season arrives hormones tend to take over.
It would be worth a try.