Adding baby geese to chicken flock?

[JosieMaeChickens]

We have an established flock of about 65 adult chickens, plus roughly 60-70 young chickens.. we want to add geese. Never owned them before.. give me the “geese for dummies” run down. Anything we definitely should know? We are looking for docile breeds but good guard/ alert geese. We will be hatching all summer long so they will have a “flock” to grow up with.

 

[KathiQuacks]

Typically, the calmest geese are the worst alerts, and the best alerts are the most aggressive.
I also would not get geese assuming they will care about your chickens. The wrong goose could even be a danger to your birds.

I have ducks and 2 female geese - 1 African, 1 Buff. They’ve both come a long way to get used to my ducks. Right now, they will at most tolerate being about 5 feet away from them. My African especially will chase and bite my ducks if they get too close, so they must sleep separately from them.

My neighbor has male & female Chinese geese, and while they’re technically kept in the same area as their chickens & turkeys, the geese keep to themselves and choose to sleep separately. They are fantastic predator alerts, but they only guard each other.

I’d do Greylag breeds (Embden, Toulouse, Sebastopol, etc.) if you want the best chance at calmness. I’d probably only get Swan breeds (African & Chinese) for their alertness if you are capable of separating them.

 

[Goosebaby]

There are alarm geese but no such thing as guard geese. Geese will defend their mate, nest, and goslings with their lives but nothing else. Geese are more fragile than they let on so when I say they’ll defend their family with their lives I mean that in the literal sense.
Geese can tolerate other birds but tolerance is usually the best you can hope for. Geese don’t like smaller zippy birds invading their space. Smaller birds with big personalities can and do bully geese, but when the goose has finally had enough it doesn’t take much for him/her to kill the offending chicken or duck.