Goslings Make Good Pets

Unlike chicks, goslings have one feature that makes them the cutest baby farm bird you can get.  They’ll imprint on you if they don’t have parents.  These goslings are happy to follow me around all day, and since their legs are much shorter they have to run like wild to keep up.  They are even very happy to splash into our developing pond and swim around while I wade.

This just adds to their appeal as the cutest things that you can have.  They are extremely attached, although once they go back to their box they settle down to splash in their water there.  They are extremely messy birds because geese, like ducks, need to dilute their food in water to swallow it, so every bite means chewing in the water, splashing about and spilling some food.  Their box needs to be cleaned every couple of days, and we cannot wait for them to go outside full time.

They also grow faster than chicks in terms of size.  They don’t get pinfeathers as quickly (chickens feather out right away), but they have almost doubled in size.  We definitely have a male-female pair, the boy goose is almost double the size of his little sibling.

I think that the imprinting is a great sign towards us having friendly geese.  They are totally relating to humans and should continue to think we are normal companions for the rest of their lives.