Geese training?

[Linda Hicks]

Okay so here is the thing.....my 2 geese have been handled and interacted with on a daily basis....BUT a few days ago my Gander bit me on the back of the calf and left a good bruise~! Now usually when he gets all excited and wants to bite we pick him up and let him calm down. I am not sure if it was the sandals I had on because they were silver and sparkly or what it was but he would try to nip at them and when I moved my feet he became more agressive. Kind of like he thought it was a game. My husband is out there with them all the time he sits on the lawn with them and he pets them etc. I sometimes feel he is teasing them without realizing it. Last night everytime Romeo tried to nip at me I would very carefully put my hand around his neck and use the other hand to scratch him.....what are we doing wrong??? I have tried to make myself big and flap my arms and back him up it does not work....my fear is IF they mate I am going to have a very mean critter on my hands.
Any advise on geese training and imprinting? I Love them to pieces but their little love pecks have become more then that....is picking him up the right thing to do??? Please help me because I do not want o become afraid of this Gander.....I really want to be able to interact with him and be comfortable. They follow me like dogs and he eats out of my hand etc. All of a sudden he has my female getting a bit aggressive....Oh and did I mention how loud he gets???? Holy Smack~!!!
I need a few pointers so I can do my yard work and not have him chewing on me. I don't mine the friendly pecks but he gets out of control to the point of me wanting to kick him and I don't want to do that......just want him to stop with the aggresion that has come out of nowhere.
Thanks~!!!

I have had my pair of Pilgrims for 6 years. We handled the aggression by grabbing the ganders neck and pushing his beak to the ground till he relaxed a bit then let go. Sometimes it took a few times. It is very bad at breeding time ....that's nature. Sometimes we used a broom to scoot him away. I have noticed that he has become less aggressive as he ages if that is of any help. Do not baby them as it becomes a game. My 3 horses are bullied by the gander. The two minis now just kick at them or ignore them and the gander has let them alone but the large horse runs which means the game is on. Remember his job is to protect his goose and his property at all costs...he is programmed for protection. You have to be aggressive back at him.

 

[Magriet]

Why we are letting her hatch is not an easy question to answer, at first we thought one or two goslings would be nice, on second thought that may not have been wise but we cannot stop it now, we will have to handle that if she sits too long and if nothing happens. His aggression is a problem but I think it is mainly because of the way he was handled before we came here. The new people hitting him is when it really started getting uncontrollable. Previously if you just waved at him he would back down, I do not know why they hit him. I will try the broom thing, thank you

 

[Lori-in-Californa]

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First things first. Don't make excuses for him. The sandals very well could have been what caught his eye. It doesn't matter. His behavior is unacceptable. I don't care if you were wearing giant hot pink goose eating slippers with 4 carat diamond encrusted soles he is not to be aggressive with you for any reason at any time. Period. No excuses.

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How so?

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Treating him like a rare fragile treasure rather than potentially dangerous livestock.

Do not scratch him. KICK HIS BUTT! Literally if you have to.

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He knows you're bluffing. How does it not work? He doesn't back down? And then what do you do?

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Step one: do not imprint a gander onto a human. You're way past that, unfortunately. Step two is to not bluff. You absolutely, positively MUST follow through. You must have every intention of putting him in his place by whatever means necessary whenever he challenges you. Every time he calls your bluff and wins it confirms that he is alpha to you.

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First, stop anthropomorphizing the bird. They're not love pecks, they're dominance pecks. He is exerting dominance over you. Nothing more, nothing less. Second, stop feeding him out of your hand. You will never see a goose lower on the gaggle hierarchy being allowed to freely eat out of any area that "belongs" at that moment to one of his superiors. You are telling the bird he is your boss.

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She too thinks you're lower on the hierarchy. As for the noise. Yep. Geese. Louder than train whistles. LOL! Nothing you can do about that, really.

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There is no such thing as friendly pecks, those are just the small pecks that he used to test the water to find out whether or not you were dominant to him. You allowed it, he confirmed he is, in fact, alpha and now he dominates you as he pleases.

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Good! Use that frustration. Stand up, get BIG, spread your wings and DEMAND your space. I guarantee, based on what you've typed here, if I saw you do this in person I would tell you you were not big enough and mean enough. Get bigger, get meaner and most of all FOLLOW THROUGH. If he comes back at you, you have to go back at him 10 times harder. If it gets physical and you have to grab him you do not "carefully" put your hand around his neck, you grab on sweep him up and hold him hard, very firmly pin his wings down. You have to mean business. You are not going to hurt that gander. Put some force behind whatever you do with him.

Some people come by this naturally. They have dominant personalities, they demand respect with their presence. Others don't. You may simply be one that needs to work at it. Good Luck!

I read that with drakes (boy ducks) if you carry them under your arm as you walk around you are exherting dominance over him. He can’t move, and you choose where to go, and how long he is under your control. Would this work with a gander? I have one drake with 5 ducks, and he is very mellow and sociable with me. But he’s never even seen another drake, which I read helps mitigate any aggressive tendencies.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It might but a gander would be harder to carry around under your arm since they are so much larger. And you'd have to be very careful to keep the head secured because they can bite. Ask me how I know lol
I use the holding down technique with my gander and it helps for a while. During the breeding season it's every day I have to remind him.

 

[Goosebaby]

Quote:

First things first. Don't make excuses for him. The sandals very well could have been what caught his eye. It doesn't matter. His behavior is unacceptable. I don't care if you were wearing giant hot pink goose eating slippers with 4 carat diamond encrusted soles he is not to be aggressive with you for any reason at any time. Period. No excuses.

Quote:

How so?

Quote:

Treating him like a rare fragile treasure rather than potentially dangerous livestock.

Do not scratch him. KICK HIS BUTT! Literally if you have to.

Quote:

He knows you're bluffing. How does it not work? He doesn't back down? And then what do you do?

Quote:

Step one: do not imprint a gander onto a human. You're way past that, unfortunately. Step two is to not bluff. You absolutely, positively MUST follow through. You must have every intention of putting him in his place by whatever means necessary whenever he challenges you. Every time he calls your bluff and wins it confirms that he is alpha to you.

Quote:

First, stop anthropomorphizing the bird. They're not love pecks, they're dominance pecks. He is exerting dominance over you. Nothing more, nothing less. Second, stop feeding him out of your hand. You will never see a goose lower on the gaggle hierarchy being allowed to freely eat out of any area that "belongs" at that moment to one of his superiors. You are telling the bird he is your boss.

Quote:

She too thinks you're lower on the hierarchy. As for the noise. Yep. Geese. Louder than train whistles. LOL! Nothing you can do about that, really.

Quote:

There is no such thing as friendly pecks, those are just the small pecks that he used to test the water to find out whether or not you were dominant to him. You allowed it, he confirmed he is, in fact, alpha and now he dominates you as he pleases.

Quote:

Good! Use that frustration. Stand up, get BIG, spread your wings and DEMAND your space. I guarantee, based on what you've typed here, if I saw you do this in person I would tell you you were not big enough and mean enough. Get bigger, get meaner and most of all FOLLOW THROUGH. If he comes back at you, you have to go back at him 10 times harder. If it gets physical and you have to grab him you do not "carefully" put your hand around his neck, you grab on sweep him up and hold him hard, very firmly pin his wings down. You have to mean business. You are not going to hurt that gander. Put some force behind whatever you do with him.

Some people come by this naturally. They have dominant personalities, they demand respect with their presence. Others don't. You may simply be one that needs to work at it. Good Luck!

Yeah, no to this.

I know from plenty of experience this is how you reinforce aggression in geese.

Every single gander and goose I’ve snuggled, allowed to chew on my hair or clothes, fed out of my hands, anthropormorphized, and in general babied every day of their lives have never attacked me. Not one.

The only ones who have is the one‘s who were raised by someone who decided to teach them that they were the big bad alpha dog and then couldn’t deal with them when he then became hyper aggressive. The worst of them, the only one who challenges me and who is aggressive daily is the one who endured the “KICK HIS BUTT” approach because he was taught that humans are mean, humans are a threat, humans challenge him like a rival gander, that he has a legitimate reason to fear and hate humans.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m a pushover with my geese. I’m in charge.
Geese are also hormonal in breeding season “anywhere between fall and spring” and their brains go haywire. They can not control that biological fact and they can’t control their behavior. They will get aggressive to someone or something or each other.
The ones who are the most hostile towards each other I separate for the season. For the one that‘s aggressive towards me, when he charges I say “NO!” and then I pick him up, carry him around for a minute, then set him down in another part of the yard away from his flock, and then funnily enough I give him a treat so that he knows I’m still a friend even though he was just reminded who’s really the boss.

This simple thing takes away his power and control over the situation and establishes that I am the one with power and control, but I do it without lowering myself to fighting him like an equal or hurting him, and because of this when I say “NO!” he stops charging.

However if it’s breeding season I know I’m going to remind him of this daily, because his brain is all messed up on hormones. It isn’t his fault, he’s not making a conscious choice to be an a**, he just can’t control himself, it is not his fault. Same goes for stubborn breeds, it’s not their fault they were bred that way.



Being meaner isn’t having a dominant personality, it’s being a bully. A dominant personality is being the bigger person and having the confidence that our bigger brain can de-escalate the situation, not stooping to an animalistic level.

Use the bully approach on a parrot and you’ll have a bird that plucks and self mutilates that no hand can go near without losing finger. Use the bully approach on a dog and you’ll end up with one that pisses itself and bites. Use it on a horse and you either get a several hundred + fear driven beast that will attack on sight or a terrified flighty animal that will kill or destroy the life of someone who doesn’t realize what they’re dealing with when they climb onto it’s back.
A goose is no different than any other animal. Teach it to fear you and it will never respect you, you just end up with an abused animal with behavioral problems.