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Posts tagged ‘alyesbury’

30
Jan

The geese in action…

Well, most of the animals we have had here have been very cute/productive/appealing, but I must note one quite cantankerous exception.

We handreared a small number of alyesbury ducks and two geese over summer 2010, who we thought we had a pretty good relationship with. The geese grew into two lovely looking birds – we didn’t know if male or female… until just after Christmas, when it turned out that one was a gander – and he developed the worst case of bad attitude ever!

From then on we generally saw him coming with his head stretched out, ready to bite whoever he could sink his (surprisingly sharp) teeth into. We tried to see it as protecting his lady, but he gave her a rough time too, and even the ducks suffered a couple of unspeakable attacks.

I still don’t know if all ganders are like that or what we did wrong. I do know, however that he tasted great and that his lady is now a very peaceful and elegant leader of the ducks around the garden and noone seemed to miss him much!