What gender are my geese?

[swimming duck]

I have googled how to determine male or female greylag goose, but everything just seems to contradict each other. It says that males are typically larger, louder, and more aggressive. The females are shy, smaller, and have noticeable egg pouches under their bellies, but i have four geese and the larger one has a sack/pouch thing and is very shy, skittish and pretty quiet. and the others are all smaller, but the smallest, is very shy and skittish but doesn't have the pouch, and the other two are both loud, aggressive, especially with our poor rooster they have pulled out some of his feathers, the one gets on one of my ducks, but only occasionally a goose to mate, but it doesn't look like a male, or match the description of one so I'm really confused. can anyone help?

 

[Tivona]

Its hard to tell from the pictures but I see 4 girls. How old are they? More pictures like the first one but standing back further might help. Look for how they hold their heads when just walking or standing peacefully preferably when they are not near you so they are just being themselves. Bills level with the ground or even tipped down just a bit are usually girls. Boys like to stick their nose in the air. Boys also like to stand between the girls and any potential danger to protect those lovely girl geese. Males frequently will go towards danger while the girls stand back and watch the fight

Males are louder and more aggressive but its relative. Picking on the other birds may just be them not liking them. Males or females will get on each other for a number of reasons so mounting a duck is not necessarily any indication of gender. Then again it might be mating. Just watch and be ready to separate if it looks like the chickens or ducks might be hurt. Noise is not a good indicator of gender. Any goose can throw out a ton of sound or attitude given the circumstances.

The egg belly paunch only happens after they have been laying. Those goose eggs are heavy and sit low pulling at that belly skin till they get a bit of a sag. After the first season of laying it has been stretched out so it never seems to go away completely after that. It does reduce during non laying times such as winter but never really disappears after the first or second season of laying. Females who are young and never laid don't show it.

Hope this helps!

 

[swimming duck]

They are not yet a year old and have not started laying yet, they hatched in april 2015. I will try to get more pictures of them without them seeing me, but that might be difficult. Thank you! I will go out and try to get those pics

 

[swimming duck]

I tried to get pictures of them when they didn't know i was there, but the one attacked the rooster so I went in there to break it up. I think we might have to get rid of that goose because it won't eave him alone, but anyways here they are.

 

[swimming duck]

here are some more pictures, they are not that great, but I figured it might make it easier to tell. in the third photo the goose was trying to shoo the duck away from the bucket. The big goose seems to prefer to be somewhat separate from the other geese, if that means anything.

 

[Carrosaur]

Looks like two males two females to me, possibly three females

 

[swimming duck]

Which ones look like males? We always thought the bigger one was a male we named him shy guy haha I might have to Change that haha

 

[Carrosaur]

These two look like males to me.

 

[mbbrinegar]

I agree with carrosaur looks like 3 females and one male. The one laying by the blue water bucket looks like a male to me. My geese were hatched in april 2015 and are already mating and laying eggs, but I live in NC so it maybe because its warmer here. You'll be able to tell soon enough.

 

[swimming duck]

Thank you but two of them are going to end up in the freezer because they keep picking on the other geese and our poor rooster has like 10 tail feathers because they have plucked that many out we have separated them for now, but they are soon to go. But since we separated the aggressive geese my drake miniature Apple yard duck has been chasing around the geese!! (The biggest one and the smallest one) He is less than a quarter their size! But we think he is becoming protective because his mate just started laying eggs, even when I yell at him he still chases them around