Introducing New Goslings
New babies are the highlight of spring on the farm! Every year the burst of green grass and birdsong is underlined by the eager peeping of new young fowl joining our farm.
This year we kept the addition of new poultry pretty limited, since we already have quite a large flock. We are adding guinea fowl in another week, and we also have a broody hen sitting on eggs so we may get a few new chickens, but our main focus was an exciting order for two Roman Tufted goslings from Metzer Farms.
We have one adult Roman Tufted in our gaggle of geese, and Pete is certainly one of my favorite geese. Romans are smaller birds, only about 10lbs at adulthood, and they are fairly vocal and very curious. Pete is one of our most bonded geese, and the friendly curiosity of the Romans was a personality type I wanted more of on the farm.
Two Roman Tufted goslings arrived at our farm three weeks ago, but unfortunately one of them died shortly after arriving - a sad but not uncommon consequence of having your goslings shipped from a hatchery across the country. Fortunately Metzer Farms does stand behind their birds and got a replacement goose en route to us. Because they don't ship single birds, a no charge companion duckling was included in the shipment.
Of course, this leads to a very amusing size difference between our three birds. We have one three week old gosling who is just starting to feather out, one day old fluffy gosling, and one tiny but feisty day old duckling who is significantly smaller than her brooder-mates. While this might be a problem with chickens, who are very aggressive about their "pecking order" from hatching, geese are prone to imprinting and the three quickly starting peeping at each other in happy harmony.
And so the parade of baby animals begins on our farm!
Linked to the Homestead Blog Hop, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Link, and Dishing It & Digging It Blog Hop.