8 hens, 1 rooster & a pair of chinese guard geese

[Big Ben]

This is my first post and also my first season raising some birds.

I have 8 hens and 1 rooster raised by hand from chicks from true value(local hardware store).

I live in farm-land in central maine. Red-tail hawks, bald eagles and many other predatory birds live here. So when the chickens were 9 weeks I got a pair of brown chinese geese at 4wk old. They grew up together in a coup and the geese are the protectors but more like camp counselors. If they see a hawk circling they will herd the chickens to cover and puff up and be loud. I even have a pair of great blue herons who live here and they have been 4ft off my back porch just staring at the geese a few feet away.

Everything was fine until about 3 weeks ago when the grass stopped growing much at all. So I extended their outdoor pen from 10x40. To almost 20x50. Wrapped around my garage. An upside down canoe and small coup provide cover and shade. The geese even have a big plastic kiddie pool I refill daily for them to bathe and an additional water contsinrt for everyone.

The geese now flop/fly over the pen a few times a day. Just to eat more grass and explore. When I walk out they will run back around like toddlers caught red handed.

I added 2 more cups of allflock pellets and 2 cups of scratch grain for them to eat outside the past 2 days. They have only left 1 or 2 times a day. So I can assume they are hungry.

I tried cutting one wing on each. Only half way on the primary flight feathers as some person ssid up higher would hit veins. Although another said go up 2" from skin.

Even if they were clipped more, they just kind of try to just walk up the poultry wire netting and flap a few times and tumble in.

The geese are about 9lb and 11lb now full grown.

If anyone has any advice I would love to hear it, and if I missed something or used the incorrect terminology feel free to teach me.

 

[3KillerBs]

I added 2 more cups of allflock pellets and 2 cups of scratch grain for them to eat outside the past 2 days. They have only left 1 or 2 times a day. So I can assume they are hungry.

Welcome to BYC.

I don't know anything about geese, but is there some particular reason that you don't want to feed them free choice?

Chickens, at least, won't overeat -- except for Cornish X meat birds.

 

[Big Ben]

Freechoice? They have a lot of land to forage. Not sure what you mean by freechoice

And I have:
2 buff Orpington
2 NH red
1 white leghorn
2 araucana
1 rhode island red

 

[3KillerBs]

Freechoice? They have a lot of land to forage. Not sure what you mean by freechoice

And I have:
2 buff Orpington
2 NH red
1 white leghorn
2 araucana
1 rhode island red

Feeding free choice means having a feeder of whatever pellet or crumble you use always full and always available in addition to their forage.

@U_Stormcrow knows a lot about how to use forage to supplement feed and, since he does ration feed, how to determine how much feed to offer if you don't want to feed free choice.

 

[Big Ben]

Thanks for clarifying.

I have given them pellet/cracked corn/oats the past two days in a large amount so they can eat when needed.

The issue is that the geese are pigs with wings lol.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Offer Free choice - if you have aerial predator pressures and can't afford to lose a handful, you don't want to try and free range pasture to suppliment diet - and even if you did, you are in Maine, with a short growing season now ending - its too late to try and get a polycultural pasture growing.

But I'm no expert - still learning by doing myself.

and I tell the condition of my birds, besides behavior observations and keeping an eye on their droppings (NOT in that order) by culling a couple a week on average and getting my hands up in them. Hard to lie when the skin is peeled back and the entrails exposed.

Its an impractical method for most.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

my ducks are similar - and can they instantly foul a water source - but my goats would put a pig to shame.

 

[Isadora]

my ducks are similar - and can they instantly foul a water source - but my goats would put a pig to shame.

I Read this as your goats are more messy than pigs, but now I realize you mean their appetites. Those must be some gluttonous goats. Our pigs were very food motivated.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I Read this as your goats are more messy than pigs, but now I realize you mean their appetites. Those must be some gluttonous goats. Our pigs were very food motivated.

In fairness, my dame just dropped a pair of boys, she looked positively skeletal when the process was done, and is busy putting weight back on.

And yes, its a fight to keep them out of the chicken feed - I know how dangerous it can be to them.

Happily, they are fond of eating blackberry bramble down to just over ankle height, as the numerous scratches on my legs will adequately attest.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

If thats the fence your using I can guarentee they are walking over it not flying. I would get more stakes and make the fence harder where its not flopping over