Starving Baby Goose Falls in Love with His Rescuer
http://www.care2.com/causes/starving-baby-goose-falls-in-love-with-his-rescuer.html
by Laura Simpson May 6, 2013 5:30 pm
Written by Cheryl Bernstein (Gauteng, South Africa)
It was a hot summer Sunday and my husband and I decided to take our two grandchildren with their bicyles for a ride around our local lake. Of course, a visit to the lake wouldn’t be the same without taking brown bread and feeding the multitude of ducks and geese that inhabit the lake and its island. There are probably around 200 geese and ducks at the lake. They are all hungry, surviving only on the grass that surrounds the lake.
Once a year there is a massive cull of these geese, but they soon recover in numbers in the spring. My two grandchilden, armed with their packets of bread, began feeding the geese and were soon overwhelmed as the birds left the water and surrounded them, squaking and grabbing bread out their hands. Then, in the midst of all the noise, feathers, ducks and geese swimming about, swam a tiny, yellow gosling.
He could not have been more than two days old. He was desperate for something to eat and tried to grab a crumb or two of bread from the water, but the adult geese would have none of it. They pecked his tiny head and some even tried to push his head underwater. He tried to get away and climbed out onto a rock. I walked down to the water’s edge and grabbed him. Immediately, he put his tired little head onto my shoulder and closed his baby eyes. He was exhausted. I felt his crop and it was empty. His tiny body was just skin, bone and fluffy down. This baby was starving.
My husband, the children and I decided to walk around the lake and look for other families of geese who had goslings to which this baby may belong. We walked and searched in the reeds for about an hour, eventually realizing this baby was abandoned and alone. We decided to take him home and raise him. I made a gruel of finely grated carrots, carrot tops, celery tops, mashed duck pellets, crushed fresh corn and water, but the gosling didn’t recognize this as food and would only eat tiny crumbs of bread. This isn’t a balanced diet for a water bird.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/starving-baby-goose-falls-in-love-with-his-rescuer.html#ixzz2SdL74xuV
FULL 2 page story at link.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Awwww. Best left in the wild but that situation in particular would not be a good one. I am glad she has Goose and Goose now has a goose friend. 
the lake is about 13 ft from our deck. We, too, have made friends with a goose who was abandoned by the flock. We noticed that the geese will gather around a bird feeder and eat the seeds. So, we bought wild birdseed and that's what we give to Jared(named after my husband's grandson), about twice a week. We do not give the seeds to other geese and he has learned to come by himself. Three years ago, he had gained enough strength to court a female. They built their nest on the lake right behind our home, and had 4 goslings. We called the female "Hissy" because she hissed a lot. Hissy, the "hussy" left him for another goose, most likely younger and stronger. Jared will sometimes just sit next to our sliding glass doors. We talk to him a lot and he answers with little "grunts". It has been a delightful experience. 
The story got a larger response than I expected.
Thanks so much for posting this. I don't understand that 100% culling.
And how he hisses at my husband. 
And yes, at times they play.
Yup, he bonded with me
