Anyone know anything about geese?

Esther.D

Esther.D

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Jan 3, 2003
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Shetland!
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Seriously considering trying to rehome our goats at the moment, with baby no. 3 on the way and looking like another winter of hay shortages (£52 a big round bale last winter :eek: ) and 2 horses, 3 ponies to feed the 2 goats really may have to find a new home. Sad but I think necessary as we do not have a massive amount of grazing and they need to be in and fed all winter, and I reckon 5 horses/ponies, currently on something like 29 chickens (that includes the chicks, obviously most of them will not be staying!), dog, cats and hopefully three kids by end of November (don't like to count my babies as it were until the 20wk scan - next week - when I can make sure all ok) is really quite enough for anyone!

Considering turning their paddock over to geese, they have 5ft stock netting with 3 strands of electric on the inside so should keep geese with clipped wings in ok. We need something that keeps the grass down a bit but needs less grazing than two goats, ideally productive in some way but don't really want to go down the raising a couple of lambs/pigs for meat route and I suspect we would still need to feed quite a lot extra so might not be economical. Anyone have geese and can advise on the amount of grazing they need? Obviously like the hens they will be being fed too, with a view to eating eggs and raising goslings for meat. Good idea, bad idea :confused: the paddock they would be going into is about 1/8th of an acre (the goats have two paddocks but the other one is 'borrowed' off a neighbour and not suitable for geese as just bounded by a stream).

Or is there anything else that will keep down the grass in 1/8th acre and ideally be productive in some way, without being piggies, who I would love we are far too soft and cannot see us managing to keep just the two and send both for slaughter - for some reason I am better with something I can breed from and then eat the results than I am with eating the originals as it were - daft I know! Hence the idea of a trio of geese?

Quite sad about this and hoping can find good homes for Beauty and Gonzalez but think it is the most practical decision in the circumstances. Have dithered about this in the past but I think we have come to crunch time when we really have to make the decision.
 
Wow, you do have your hands full! Sorry, can't help with the info on geese, all I know is they are cheeky and hiss (well, our farmers ones do!!lol). Hope all works out for you - and will be watching this thread with interest, I don't know a lot about geese. OH quite likes them...........
 
My friend got 2 geese. They looked lovely:D. They wandered around and they had their little house to go into.

Then they got a little bit cheeky. They were great with her hubby, my hubby, me but they were a bit nasty with her.

So her hubby told her to be assertive - just shoo them away.

So she did - so she ended up with a goose hanging from her arm kicking her in the side.

So she ran away.

So then they started chasing her.

So then they wouldnt let her out of her car sometimes. They would peck the window in the sunlounge if she was in there. She couldnt hang out washing any more without taking a lunge whip.

But they were fine with everyone else.

Till they attacked me - and I swatted them with my handbag. And then they started coming at my car if I drove down.

Then they started attacking anyone who dared to visit her.

They have now been rehomed to a petting zoo in Glasgow:eek: - where they have attacked several of the staff!

I dont like geese any more:(
 
See..I would do lambs if it were me, if you get the hardy type like hebridian type sheep they are not big massive munchers and survive on very little. They also lamb outdoors by themselves so can be good for small holders. Not much on the lamb but will do the job.

Pigs... hmmm... I would have no issue sending the pigs to slaughter..smelly noisey things...can tell I live on a farm!! Kune Kune pigs are smaller and a little nicer to have around, but would not like the big commercial ones! We sell these as pets too as they are very small.

Geese seem a good idea too but I don't know much about them, we have a few but not for meat. :) There was a piece done on a goose farmer on bbc's countryfile, maybe you could find it on the iplayer?
 
nat17 said:
See..I would do lambs if it were me, if you get the hardy type like hebridian type sheep they are not big massive munchers and survive on very little. They also lamb outdoors by themselves so can be good for small holders. Not much on the lamb but will do the job.
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Or Shetlands :D Just don't think we have enough grazing for even just a couple of little Shetlands (they are v. similar generally to Hebrideans), we did consider them last year but while I know they are much smaller than the goats I am still worried about grazing as we have to feed the goats all year round on hay and hard feed (between both paddocks they maybe have 1/4 acre and I don't think that would be enough even for little hardy sheep and part of the idea here is to reduce hay consumption as much as anything else).

Would happily have either a couple of small pigs or pygmy goats on there as pets tbh but cannot get either up here on Shetland and don't really won't to spend an arm and a leg importing pets :)

Still doing my research! Geese are winning again at the moment as being lower maintenance than pigs especially now I have discovered weaners up here are £50each which is higher than mainland prices.

I try to be pragmatic about things like this but not having been raised on a farm I have to work hard on it at times!
 
I know its not what you want or need to hear but I'd be keeping the goats and def not getting geese - we (read hubby) thought about getting some last year whilst the ponies were at livery - grass needed munching and the goats werent getting through it. Def not my animal of choice!!
 
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happyhacker101 said:
I know its not what you want or need to hear but I'd be keeping the goats and def not getting geese - we (read hubby) thought about getting some last year whilst the ponies were at livery - grass needed munching and the goats werent getting through it. Def not my animal of choice!!
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No this is just the kind of thing I do need to hear now, before we commit to anything! Unfortunately I think the goats do have to go, we just don't have enough grazing and with hay prices rocketing we really do not need more mouths to feed on hay at £52 a round bale....

I am open to persuasion on what to put on there though.

I know even less about turkeys than I do about pigs and geese but certainly something I hadn't thought about!
 
Geese are evil, they attack everyone and have horrid teeth too, not my choice at all, we had 3 and I have never been so pleased when the last one got eaten by Mr Fox !!

I personally would consider turkeys but only Norfolk blacks !!! - nat 17 what are outdoor turkeys lol I have images of someone sitting indoors with turkeys around them !!

Chickens or ducks, you could do a mixture of white chickens for meat and layers - not sure regarding ducks for meat ?
 
I must admit I hate geese they are noisy and stinky and can be agressive (I speak from expirience). But they taste great :D
 
Wally said:
Geese will turn it to a quag.

Frances turkey attacks me!
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So will pigs, but I suppose at least they like it like that!

Libbylou - I think our current head count of 29 chickens is probably adequate for chickens :D Staying away from ducks for the same reason Wally says (which is a very good point) as they will trash the place. Wally - the cockeral we hatched from your eggs has been busy (is on a reprieve - don't know what Beth did to him but he is leaving the kids alone now!) we have 17 chicks at the moment!

Ok, so - geese will trash the place and attack us, turkeys will also attack us, pigs will just trash the place (oh and are smelly and noisy - but that has applied to most things so far!), the goats are fine but need a lot of supplementary feeding as we just don't have enough acreage for them, and we would probably hit same problem with sheep also with very little return. Originally intended to keep the goats for milk but with another baby on the way we just really don't have the time for kidding and then milking on top of everything else.

hmmm, there must be something that can keep grass down and give some kind of return or at least be a good low maintenance pet!
 
Far too small sadly, only a teeny paddock, maybe 1/8th of an acre. Also gets wet during the winter, hence our original choice of goats for it as they are pretty light on the ground.

libbylou - whole place is infested by rabbits but we also have a feral ferret population (have to be very vigilant locking hens up) and our cats are keen rabbit hunters! tbh if I was going to keep rabbits for meat I'd be better just buying an air rifle and shooting the wild ones, and for pet purposes that is an awful lot of bunnies! :D

Need a tardis paddock! It really is just a postage stamp but is very well fenced and really too much to cope with as a veg patch (especially as completely infested with docks the minute the goats stop grazing it). I really like the goats its just I don't really want something I have to feed all year around with no return, they are not particularly expensive but it is just two extra mouths to feed hay in the winter and if there is another shortage then I have enough horses to feed without any extras. Just would be nice to see them grazing a bigger acreage rather than continually adjusting feed to keep their weight up as there just isn't enough grazing, even with the two paddocks.

Thanks for the ideas/opinions though guys :)
 
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Unfortunately have already annexed the only bit of spare land that was going as our second paddock, but it isn't very big either. Winter isn't the main problem tbh, we are still feeding a good slice of hay and two hard feeds a day at the moment as the grass really hasn't come through as well as usual and they were losing weight, last year we rotated them into the second paddock which allowed the first to recover, but then they worked out how to escape (being goats!) so now they can only be in there when I am about as we have it as goat-proof as we can do when it is not our land, and unfortunately it isn't just fields they could get into, our neighbours have an immaculate garden..So we are running into grazing problems even over the summer. In winter they really do not do the wet weather so spend a lot of time inside (plus again the limited grazing issue of course) utterly fed on hay and hard feed. They are also browsers rather than grazers, so if you look at their paddock it still has grass on it, if they were sheep/horses etc they'd still have grazing on there, even on the smaller paddock and the larger one appears to have plenty on but they don't eat it once it is shorter.
 
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