Category: Gigi

This one’s a little rough, and extraordinarily sad for me…

We had to say goodbye to Gigi, our almost 10-year resident goose here on the homestead. It wasn’t necessarily that she had died, it was how…

Sue went into the barn one morning to get the dogs out of the kennel to take them up to one of the goat fields for their morning time up there, and when she opened the back door to the barn, the dogs met her there.

Wait…what??!! she thought. That’s impossible…the dogs are in the kennel!

It was true; they were out, and the worst fear had come to pass…

Being Border Collies, they have an extremely strong instinct to chase down animals, and sadly with birds, eat them. And sure enough, Sue found Gigi dead. She took up the dogs, and came and got me, and it was true. Interestingly, Gigi didn’t seem to have too many injuries to her, only torn open a little in her chest, but maybe the whole experience was too much physically, or something happened to her neck, or the injuries were just worse than they looked, but she was gone. We pray she didn’t really suffer and that it was quick and painless.

The chain link fencing at the bottom of the kennel door had been pulled up some, and the dogs had apparently squeezed through. Brodey at times past has become scared or something, usually in thunderstorms, and will bite on the kennel door fencing and pull on it. He’s even broken a lower canine of his, we figure from doing that. Well, we assume this is what happened and how they got out.

It’s so heart wrenching, because it was easily preventable. And needless to say, we are much more aware of the conditions of the kennels now.

But, before the world was even created, God planned in His wisdom and goodness to grant us just 5 days short of 10 years to take care of His gift Gigi, who brought pleasantness to the homestead. And we thank the Lord that no other animals were killed with the dogs free like that — a great grace and mercy!

Here is Gigi with each of her mates, including videos of their introductions:

When Gary met her:

And when she met Augie:

And finally, when she met Gustav:

And here’s a final video of she and Gustav, after Gustav had got a watermelon rind stuck on him. We hope God grants us another female at some point so Gustav will not be alone:

We thank the Lord for allowing us to have Gigi and the blessing she was, and thanks again to the folks that gave her to us!

Goodbye, Gigi…

— David

Last year, our goose Gigi laid a clutch of eggs in a nest she made behind our main, inner fence area. With all of the critters running around at night looking for a delectable morsel, such as a goose, to eat, we couldn’t let her continue to nest back there; and so, we tried moving her eggs into the barn, where she and Gary are put at night. Sadly, that didn’t work as she showed no interest in sitting on them; and so nothing came of the eggs she laid.

Also last year, I had put together a couple of palettes on their sides, end to end in a right angle to use as a separator in our goat sheds to keep kids away from their mother over night to allow us to be able to milk the doe in the morning. When the milking had stopped, I moved it into another pen area to get it out of the way. Well, this year, Gigi decided to nest in the inside the corner of that palette structure. With it away from the back wooded area by maybe 150 feet, we figured this would be a fine place for her, if I could build up the structure to make it a shelter that would keep out critters if they discovered her presence up there.

And so, I did some work on the structure to enclose it for her, adding two more palette sides, putting some plywood on them, and adding a roof. This was to allow her to begin to have a more secure place in which to sit, but wasn’t quite ready for her to be there all night, as it had many places for critters to get in. Then, one night recently, Gigi decided to sit on the eggs, even up to darkness, when we would have typically put she and Gary in the barn. And so, suddenly she needed the finished product available to her. Sue and I grabbed some spare wood, and we worked to finish sealing it up as best we could. Gigi sat there the whole time we shored it up too. And here is her completed nesting shed:

However, the next morning, she decided to not nest anymore, and hasn’t tried to again in the evening since; but now she has her place ready, if she decides to again sit.

This is a look at her clutch of eggs:

And here she is another day actually on the eggs:

It would be neat if the Lord granted some goslings, although it appears that since Gary and Gigi don’t have access to a real watering hole (like a pond), and they seem to mate when they’re in the water, I don’t know if they’ve actually connected; but we’ll see what happens.

We’re thankful to God for allowing us to watch this process, and for ordaining that Gigi would nest in a more secure area.

— David