Two young farmers have recently taken in a lost goose that was found waddling around Golden Bay, with clipped wings.

Chucky, the golden (bay) goose, now lives in a pen, together with other feathered hen friends, in the Burmarrad farm run by couple Cassandra Straub and Cane Vella.

“At the moment, Chucky is in an enclosure with our hens. They get along very well. We will probably keep Chucky, so we are planning to build a pond to make our farm more comfortable,” said Cassandra, adding that she still did not know if Chucky was male or female. “I don’t know how to tell with geese,” she said.

We are planning to build a pond to make our farm more comfortable- Cassandra Straub

The HPF Rangers shared a post on their Facebook page about Chucky’s rescue. The rangers, who patrol all sites of Din L-Art Ħelwa and Nature Trust Malta, described how that evening they saw that a goose remained at Golden Bay. It could not fly since its wing was clipped.

Chucky, the golden (bay) goose, with a new ‘pen pal’. Photo: Cassandra Straub

Wing clipping is generally carried out on pet birds and involves trimming a bird’s primary wing feathers, so it is not fully flight-capable, until it sheds the cut feathers and grows new ones.

“Being wing clipped he couldn’t fly off and remained at the beach until late evening. Since he would need food and fresh water, our ranger (after many calls) found a farmer who gladly came for him and gave him a home,” the post read.

The farmer was Cane and his partner Cassandra ‒ the co-founders of Biome Munch, a farm that focuses on looking at food in a holistic way and promoting a Mediterranean diet.

One night the couple were dozing off to sleep when the phone rang and a ranger told them about Chucky. They got out of bed and headed to Golden Bay where they managed to catch the goose, using a towel.

Chucky immediately felt at home at the Burmarrad farm, feasting on dried fish in water and sharing chicken feed with his new pen pals.