Newbie in many ways!

[Numero182]

Hello one and all!

New to this forum but not to all forums, they are an invaluable source of info from like minded people.

Forgive me for the lengthy post, have searched the enormous backlog here but couldn't find what i was looking for.

So, my wife and I have just sold our house in the UK and moved to Tuscany in Italy, we've bought a small/old olive farm on a hillside where all the land is terraced.

Our grand plan is to become as self sufficient as possible hoping that our holiday rental apartments combined with self sufficiency will give us the new life we've dreamed of.

We've only been here three months and are still busy clearing brambles and land but have the terraces with the olive trees immediately behind the house in good order now.

We had an unfortunate incident last week which hs sparked our sooner than planned interest in geese, when we came home we found someone had tried to climb into the house with a ladder, they never managed it and only damaged the fly screen but you can imagine how that made us feel.

So after talking with friends who keep chickens they have suggested geese can be good burglar deterants so wanted to find out if this is a good solution.

A lot of folk around here keep farm dogs, stuck in kennels or chained up but we firstly wouldn't be happy treating a dog this was and also don't think our cats would appreciate the new guest.

So current thinking is that a pair of geese, if suitable as a deterant could be fenced in on the olive terraces saving us a lot of strimming throughout the year AND give us fresh eggs.

We're expecting to need electric fencing at least as we have foxes, badgers, large buzzards and snakes on the 12 acres of land (most of it woodland) but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[LRH97]

I haven't had much experience with geese. My grandpa had a pair years ago. I have heard that they do make good burglar deterrents as well. Another idea would be Guinea fowl, also known as "feathered security alarms." Any foxes, birds of prey, or unfamiliar people will be announced with their loud calls if the birds notice them. They can be free ranged or penned with chickens and are very hardy. Maybe not the best if you live close to others though. Just an idea that I thought I should throw out there. Good luck with your new home and any future birds you may have!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I read once about a prison that had Chinese geese inside the prison yards at night to keep the prisoners from escaping.

Welcome to BYC, your place sounds amazing.

 

[livininbrazil]

Hello one and all!

New to this forum but not to all forums, they are an invaluable source of info from like minded people.

Forgive me for the lengthy post, have searched the enormous backlog here but couldn't find what i was looking for.

So, my wife and I have just sold our house in the UK and moved to Tuscany in Italy, we've bought a small/old olive farm on a hillside where all the land is terraced.

Our grand plan is to become as self sufficient as possible hoping that our holiday rental apartments combined with self sufficiency will give us the new life we've dreamed of.

We've only been here three months and are still busy clearing brambles and land but have the terraces with the olive trees immediately behind the house in good order now.

We had an unfortunate incident last week which hs sparked our sooner than planned interest in geese, when we came home we found someone had tried to climb into the house with a ladder, they never managed it and only damaged the fly screen but you can imagine how that made us feel.

So after talking with friends who keep chickens they have suggested geese can be good burglar deterants so wanted to find out if this is a good solution.

A lot of folk around here keep farm dogs, stuck in kennels or chained up but we firstly wouldn't be happy treating a dog this was and also don't think our cats would appreciate the new guest.

So current thinking is that a pair of geese, if suitable as a deterant could be fenced in on the olive terraces saving us a lot of strimming throughout the year AND give us fresh eggs.

We're expecting to need electric fencing at least as we have foxes, badgers, large buzzards and snakes on the 12 acres of land (most of it woodland) but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Hi. we moved from england to Brazil, and are really enjoying ourselves. So, hope you do, too.
As regards the geese: here, people are more worried about geese than they are dogs. Dogs can be poisoned. difficult to do with geese. The most feared are the Asiatics, so either Chinese (here called sinaleiros, I´m sure you know what that´s about) and the others that are liked are the Africans, althoyugh to be honest I think the Africans here are crossed with Chinese mostly. Whatever, they make a lot of noise and casual thieves think twice. Also, Chinese are good layers. My geese lay about 6 and go broody, so we get very few eggs!
You may want more than one pair, though.
Electric fencing should work well. Buzzards are most likely to be a threat to goslings, the snakes would be adders? Well, that´s an unavoidable risk. The biggest threats would be foxes and the locals´ dogs.
One thing to bear in mind is that geese do far better on short grass. A number of people keep geese and sheep together, but then that just adds to the livestock....
Also, when we go out, we often put the dogs away and leave the geese out.
Hope this helps....

 

[Numero182]

Thanks for the comments and warm welcome guys, I can see this being a forum I'll be spending a lot of time on. so...assuming i can lay (poulty punn) my hands on Chinese geese here in Italy, is it possible to bring them up to be both friendly to us and noisy to new faces? Would they live happily with either chickens and/or guinea fowl? My largest concern is the noise for guests at our rental apartment, currently we have a quiet retreat here on our hill and while the honk of geese would be fine when new folk arrive/leave or go out and return from sightseeing etc, i don't think we would get great trip advisor reviews if the noise was constant especially during the night. Our nearest neighbours are about half a kilometre away and can't see them so not worried about them.

 

[livininbrazil]

Thanks for the comments and warm welcome guys, I can see this being a forum I'll be spending a lot of time on. so...assuming i can lay (poulty punn) my hands on Chinese geese here in Italy, is it possible to bring them up to be both friendly to us and noisy to new faces? Would they live happily with either chickens and/or guinea fowl? My largest concern is the noise for guests at our rental apartment, currently we have a quiet retreat here on our hill and while the honk of geese would be fine when new folk arrive/leave or go out and return from sightseeing etc, i don't think we would get great trip advisor reviews if the noise was constant especially during the night. Our nearest neighbours are about half a kilometre away and can't see them so not worried about them.

Like I said before, they´re 'sinaleiros', so they make a noise as an alarm.. so it´s not constant, but they will make a noise at times, depending on what´s going on around them.
Will you want them to be wandering about at night, or shut in a little goose house? In a little house they´ll be much quieter. Will they wandering around where your guests are? Or fenced off? Geese can get a bit uppity with new people, so yes, they´d make a noise, but also they may charge guests..... (funny punn time). At night, geese may make anoise of alarm. Mine go off at night if there´s a tree porcupine clambering around, or if there´s someone strange going along the lane, etc...and, of course breeding season gets a bit noisy too.
I think Chinese are noisier than the European ones, (someone else may disagree?) but emdens, toulouse, etc also make good guards, but they don´t seem to charge as readily as the Asiatics that I´ve seen near me. Those are far more fearful to look at!

but the European ones may be easier for you to get there, of course!
They should be ok with other poultry, given the space. Usually they´ll get a bit stroppy breeding-season, but guineas will be fine. Chickens may get charged, but if they have plenty of space to keep away, all should be fine.

 

[familyfarm1]

 

[Numero182]

So we'd planned to house them at night for sure so sounds like that's definitely a good idea from a sleep disruption point of view, we definitely need to fence them in and where the guests are they won't really be able to see them so that should be fine, means the only deterrent to would be theives will be their noise noise though as charging will only get them as far as the fence, so how closely we allow them to get to our side of the house is the next consideration, depends i guess on how theynare around us and the cats, otherwise we can run the fence a metre from the house (good punn by the way)

 

[Miss Lydia]

So we'd planned to house them at night for sure so sounds like that's definitely a good idea from a sleep disruption point of view, we definitely need to fence them in and where the guests are they won't really be able to see them so that should be fine, means the only deterrent to would be theives will be their noise noise though as charging will only get them as far as the fence, so how closely we allow them to get to our side of the house is the next consideration, depends i guess on how theynare around us and the cats, otherwise we can run the fence a metre from the house (good punn by the way)

If you get goslings and raise them they will be friendly towards you and family till mating season then the ganders can be ornery but it's a natural thing and most of us who love our geese put up with it . We also have a thread on geese training because they can bite and it does hurt. lol so we discourage hand feeding for that reason. I have an Embden gander and he can be loud but only when the dogs bark usually. He is considered the large breed of geese so you might want to consider this breed is you have a hard time locating Chinese. It's amazing how many folks are afraid of geese so actually it might not matter what breed just seeing them may deter anyone from trying anything. lol My geese try to bully our dogs so we don't let them be together unless we are with them all. Dogs can and will mame and kill geese[water fowl]. Have a sign made saying Geese patrolling the area. Kind of like saying Bad Dog. lol

you might enjoy this thread.. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/618185/raising-geese-101

 

[jtn42248]

Dogs can and will mame and kill geese[water fowl]. Have a sign made saying Geese patrolling the area. Kind of like saying Bad Dog. lol

I have a cousin who is Mr. Macho, hunter, a mans-man. There is very little that he will not stand up to and even less that frightens him. Seems though, that when he was a kid, there was a gander that lay in wait for him every day when he got home from school. The bus would drop him at his front gate and, no matter how quiet he tried to be, the gander would come charging and would usually get him before he got inside the house. He spent a large part of his youth with goose-bill-bruises on his arms and that part of the anatomy that we sit on.

So, when he comes to visit us he will do anything around the farm to help out but he will not go near my geese...and they are the sweetest things you can imagine.

So, Miss Lydia is right on when she says they make great watchers and property guardians. They really have to do very little...the fear is in the person usually.