This summer it finally looked as if a goose named Little Mama was finally going to have chicks of her own to raise after five years of trying. But only hours after they hatched, the tiny goslings were killed by a predator, leaving the goose crying and protecting their lifeless bodies.
Every year, something has happened to prevent Little Mama from raising her chicks — from freezing conditions to the recent predator attack. It illustrates the sensitive nature of farm life and also the delicate balance between nature and farm.
The most recent loss was an especially hard one to take for Sherri Talbot, owner of Saffron and Honey Homestead where Little Mama lives with other heritage breed livestock and poultry.
“We found her crying over their bodies at evening chores,” Talbot said. “The sound was terrible [and] she barely made a move when I took them from her and was completely limp when I moved her to check the other eggs.”
Talbot has no doubt the goose was well on her way to dying of a broken heart this spring after years of losses.
“We named her Little Mama and unfortunately that’s been horribly ironic,” Talbot said. “We called her that because more than any other goose we’ve had she so desperately wanted to be a mother [and] she is the one who has not been able to be.”
The first year on the homestead Little Mama repeatedly left her nest to chase away a marauding raccoon. Because she had laid her eggs early, the ground was still frozen and without her body heat for warmth, the eggs froze.
The second year her mate Beardy fell ill with a still unknown condition that left him temporarily blind. Talbot said they were forced to house him in the barn away from the goose pond where he could not hurt himself.
“Everytime he started screaming and acting afraid, [Little Mama] would come to his defense,” Talbot said. “So once again she did not stay on her nest enough and the eggs never hatched out.”
The following year Beardy was completely recovered and the pair were happily living together at the goose pond.
“One morning I looked out while I was making coffee and saw Beardy down at the pond,” Talbot said. “I turned to pour my coffee, looked back and he was gone.”
They never knew what carried him off, but later that summer they found Beardy’s remains at the far end of their pasture.
For her part, Little Mama spent several days looking and calling out for her mate.
“When she figured out he was not coming back, she went back and just sat on her unfertilized eggs,” Talbot said. “She refused to go near anyone and to make it worse, that was the first year a lot of the other geese hatched out their goslings.”
Little Mama eventually put herself in a sort of barnyard self-exile in the barn and refused to venture down to the pond for about a year.
Loss of eggs and even mates is not uncommon on homesteads. Predation, illness, weather and accidents can all kill livestock. But Little Mama seemed to have experienced more than her fair share of heartache.
Then along came a young male goose who took quite the interest in the dejected female.
“We ended up with this spare male gosling and before he was even fully feathered, he was chasing her around,” Talbot said. “She wanted nothing to with him and his own mother would get between them like she was saying, ‘that hussy is not good enough for my boy.’”
That was this past spring and Little Mama had moved herself in with the chickens where she occupied a line nesting box up in the corner of the coop.
“He moved in there, too,” Talbot said. “Eventually he wore her down and they have been inseparable ever since.”
The pairing resulted in a clutch of fertilized eggs and the first two tiny goslings Little Mama was able to hatch out. Talbot could not have been happier, but it was short lived.
“We saw her sitting on them during the day,” she said. “When we went down that night, she was making this terrible sound — it was not loud, but it was not a happy sound.”
A closer inspection revealed the two newborn goslings had been killed, likely by a rat.
“Every time something like this happens, it just gets worse,” Talbot said. “She walks around with her head and wings down, does not eat and does not drink.”
Talbot said she was certain the loss of two hatched goslings would be the death of Little Mama. Turns out, that little male had different ideas.
“He was able to get her down to the pond by prodding her,” Talbot said. “First he got her to drink and then he prodded her to food.”
Now, Little Mama appears completely recovered and has even started hanging out with the other geese for the first time in three years.
Talbot is well aware how easy it is to assign human emotions to animals. At the same time, she notes research has shown that creatures that live a long time have more complex emotions. And American buff geese can live up to 20 years.
What she does know is that for the first time in five years, Little Mama is showing all the signs of a goose enjoying her life with her new mate. And if things continue to improve for Little Mama, Talbot plans to place some fertilized goose eggs under her, giving her another shot at motherhood.
As far as Talbot is concerned, that is about as close to a happily ever after you can get on a homestead.
