The Anniversary of my flock

Weeping Willow

I began my goose raising with one goose named Willow. I had no idea what geese ate. I did not give geese much thought when I was considering what animal I should raise. I am glad we decided to get a goose when we saw it at Atwoods. I may have never known how awesome geese were if we had not. Willow became close to us as he had no goose companion. We had planned to get him geese on May 9. Unfortunately, we lost Willow before he could ever have those friends. We did not know for certain whether Willow was a boy or a girl. Willow's loss was hard for us all. It was suggested that the flock be named Willow's Flock - in honor of him. On the day we lost Willow - April 27, 2018 - we went from Atwoods to Atwoods in search of another goose or two. We finally found an Atwoods with goslings. Fifteen goslings.

A picture of my flock

Two of the goslings were white and as I was familiar with color mixing within a breed I did not want to do that. I had not considered that they were most likely related. I would later find out that I had a goose with the same gene that showed it. We got thirteen goslings (I did not want to have a small number) and brought them home. Two of the goslings disappeared when they were beginning to feather out - we would never find out what happened to them. A little while later, I began to name my geese. One of them who was very familiar to me when he was a gosling was a gander named Redbud. Redbud is now my favorite goose and a big, cute gander. He is my example of how I want my ganders to look.

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Later on, the geese we had ordered for Willow that were due to arrive on May 9 arrived. I would name them Maple and Juniper. They were Chinese geese and one proved to be a fantastic layer while the other did not. One of those two is still around and the other's daughter is a member of my flock. I currently have 5 ganders and 8 geese in my flock. They all have unique voices, looks, and personalities. I bought 5 goslings in the hopes of renewing my bloodlines and will be hatching some for myself later in the laying season. 

I have many stories to share about things I did not know geese did. Many, many pictures to share of my geese and goslings. I will share my observations about my geese such as cool traits and behaviors. There is a lot I have learned in two years of raising a flock but there is still so much left to learn. It makes it all worthwhile.