Facts about geese

Geese are not only popular birds in agriculture, they are also pets for some lovers of these creatures. Differences between wild and domestic geese are enough – they formed over the years, which passed after domestication of geese.

  • Like swans, geese are monogamous – they choose a couple once and for all, at about the age of three. If the partner dies, mourning at the goose can last for several years.
  • Defending its nest, a goose can be terrible – it can even damage a person.
  • Leaving the nest for a while, the goose always masks it with grass and twigs.
  • To make the nest warmer and cozy, the goose pulls out its own down feathers and uses them as a building material.
  • Before the invention of fountain pens people wrote goose feathers.
  • Geese are long-lived, they can live up to a quarter of a century.
  • Small goslings can swim already a day after birth.
  • During molting, which lasts about a month and a half for geese, these birds can not fly.
  • Goose is considered a sacred bird in Tibet.
  • Goose feathers are covered with fat, and therefore the water from them simply rolls down. Hence the expression “like water from a gusher”.
  • In the US, on some cotton plantations, geese are used to weed the beds. Cotton geese do not eat, but they weed out the weeds and eat them very effectively.
  • For long-distance flights the goose flock can rise to a height of up to eight kilometers. The officially registered record is a bit more than 10 kilometers. At this altitude, a man without an oxygen mask can no longer breathe, and because of low pressure he loses consciousness.
  • Contrary to popular belief, not all geese have red paws – it depends on the breed.