Tupelo's Adventures

Black Tupelo

Tupelo is from Batch #005 along with other geese I love such as Stansbury Cliffrose and Gingko. She was originally called Sleepy because of her slow movements, tired looking eyes, and she liked to sleep a lot when she was a gosling. She had angel wing on one of her wings which we mended and there is no longer a sign of her having it. She sounds like her mother and looks somewhat like her. She inherited the wide-appearing eyes, beautiful feathers, and bright orange feet from her mother. She also has lighter feathers on the underpart of her wings compared to other geese. I believe this has to do with the fact that her mother has a white band on her. 

Tupelo is the most unintelligent of the flock. It is one of the reasons I like her so much. It makes her very unique. She has done two quite unusual things so far. The first was that she was perching. Not all night but for a while. Just standing there looking slowly around at the other geese below her. Some geese like climbing up onto things more than others but this was still quite unusual. The other thing is that she went broody. But she did not have any eggs. She had rocks. I moved the rocks. They were back. She did finally lay an egg. I gathered hay so she would not break her egg on the rocks and took the rocks out. She accepted the hay and the two other eggs I also gave her. Unfortunately, she quickly gave up any dreams of brooding and started calling her flock. Her gander had been calling her. I got her gander. She was still upset. I tried to give her food and water so she would not need to get up off her nest. That did not work. Eventually I had to give up the attempt and let her and her gander out and take the eggs away to be hatched by me.

It was disappointing she did not want to brood. She is now no longer brooding rocks and instead goes around screaming when exciting things happen. She also gets incredibly excited when there are goslings but I do not believe she is the right type of goose for mothering. I tried to put her with goslings and she was pecking them and did not seem too thrilled with them. One of the other geese proved to be an absolute lover of goslings and quickly bonds with them. 

There were eggs almost every day for a while which I believe she laid. Usually only chinese-blooded geese can lay three days in a row. Tupelo would have that in her blood but not as strongly as my best layer. I am hoping those were her eggs because I would be delighted to have her as an awesome layer.