Bert Gerber was woken up in the middle of the night by a loud and unfamiliar honking noise.
He walked outside in his flip-flops to find his family’s barn — where about 60 turkeys and chickens slept — on fire.
Gerber grabbed a water hose and rushed toward the flames, which he put out in about three minutes. The fire had not reached the animals, all of whom survived.
“In just a couple more minutes,” Gerber said, “it would’ve been too much for a water hose.”
A few hours later, Gerber watched footage from his surveillance camera in his yard in Richmond, Texas. The footage showed his family’s pet goose, Goosey, waddling out of the barn amid the fire and honking several times — one squawk was so forceful he sounded like he was wailing.
The noise woke up Gerber, prompting him to extinguish the fire before any animals were hurt, he said. It was the first time Gerber heard Goosey, who is typically quiet and shy, honk.
Later that day, Aug. 3, Gerber’s wife, Chelsea Gerber, shared the video on social media, where more than 1 million people have witnessed Goosey’s fortuitous screeching.
“Goosey wasn’t just making noise,” wrote Chelsea Gerber, 39. “He was sounding the alarm.”
Three months before the fire, Chelsea Gerber, who manages a breeding farm, didn’t want to get a pet goose. She said the geese her family raised in Vassar, Michigan, often chased and bit her when she was a child.
But she and her daughter Elaina, 9, visited a Texas poultry exposition in May that let visitors hold a goose. Elaina became emotional petting a Sebastopol gosling’s fluffy feathers. She wanted to take the goose home, and her mom reluctantly agreed.
The family bought a plastic children’s pool, which Goosey excitedly runs to when Chelsea Gerber fills it every morning.
As Goosey grew in recent weeks, he moved from sleeping on the family’s back porch to a red barn with chickens and turkeys. He likes sleeping in a stall beside the chicken coop.
That’s where Goosey was around 1 a.m. when the fire ignited in the barn. A few seconds later, Goosey, about 4 months old, hustled into the yard with a warning cry.
The Gerbers said the fire was probably caused by a ceiling wire that overheated or was chewed by an animal.
Reviewing the security camera footage later that morning, Bert Gerber said Goosey looked like “a phoenix rising from the ashes.” Chelsea Gerber said tears filled her eyes witnessing Goosey’s efforts.
“I don’t think we give animals enough credit for how emotional they truly are,” she said. “And if you listen to them, they do communicate with you — just not with words.”
Goosey seemed unfazed by the incident, the Gerbers said, and has been rewarded with his favorite snacks: peas, romaine lettuce and watermelon.
He has appeared to take on a guardian role among the birds. When a turkey named Puppy leaves her nest of a dozen eggs, Goosey sits atop the eggs to keep them warm, the Gerbers said. But he’s still shy; Goosey avoided reporters from Houston news station KHOU who came to the barn to report on his heroics a few days after the fire.
The Gerbers said they are replacing the wiring in the barn and hope to eventually build a new one.
Chelsea Gerber once told her daughter that Goosey would be their only pet goose. Now, she’s considering getting a female goose she would name Lucy.
“No rush on goslings,” she said, “but if they happen naturally we would be thrilled.”
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