Interestingly enough, my hens are by far more aggressive than my toms. Not to us, but to each other and other animals. The only animals we have that are aggressive towards us are the ding-dang geese with whom I have a love/ hate relationship. They have one more spring to make themselves useful….

Pamela, well, he chases the dog around but she asks for it (literally: chasemechaseme!). He’s still as sweet as ever to me and the child, but then they were hand-raised, which I am sure helps. But yes the hen is nicer. I love the geese too: no aggression there either though they are a bit less social than they used to be. But yes, that must be an annoying roo if YOU call him “sandwich”!

Linda, well damn that’s too bad. If you go to Dave’s Garden Watchdog and put in the variety you can find who sells the Bird Egg beans: they’re around, I have seen them in at least 4 catalogs.

Shelly, hah! She’s fine. He isn’t…doing it yet, he’s just being puffy and pftty. She just as easily could have been flying out to eat some grass: it was actually visible here for a few days.

Sylvie, that is a great story. I know there’s something triggered if the girls are raised alone that they’ll never really warm up to a guy’s affections. But what a booger, eating those eggs. It would take me a while too. Our girl purrs too, and just “talks” all the time like some of my favorite (bossier) chickens do. Here’s crossing my fingers that neither the geese nor the turkeys become egg eaters because they live together! This spring we’re building separate nest structures so we’ll see.

Hi Kim. Yeah, I need to update my tabs above; I thought I would do it on the long weekend above to include things like new farms and places like the hatchery. I got them from Privett Hatchery in New Mexico: I also got the geese and the last batch of meat birds, which I was especially pleased with. They were really great, really chicken-y in their habits and had no health problems. My daughter got me to spare one (Chicken Patty) and she is the sweetest if largest bird we have. So yes I would definitely recommend them.

Kim

My parents really wanted geese and were trying to breed a pair. And finally, it looked like everything went right, and mother goose was laying and staying on top of the eggs. But the eggs kept disappearing. Blame the cats, blame the dogs… until Josephine was caught in the act of eating the goose eggs.

That was the end. It took 6 months in the freezer to forget that THAT bird was Josephine…

Sylvie

What really gets me as their son threw out the beans (seeds) the year he took over the house after his mom died. (Sigh) Gone forever, but not forgotten.

Linda
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