African & Toulouse geese

[sayyadina]

I was wondering if anyone knows of any websites with good information about African & Toulouse geese.

Could a fox or bald eagle get either of these geese?

 

[Windchyme]

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As babies definately....I'd watch it during the day and lock it up at night at least until it is 9 months old. My adults don't have any problems here free ranging all the time but it is concievable that a couple coyotes could take out even an adult goose, bobcat can as well as cougar. If you aren't sure you may want to lean towards being safe rather then sorry.

 

[sayyadina]

I'm thinking that geese can be a part of our alpaca guarding.

I think this stuff with the foxes has finally convinced my dad that getting a couple guard llamas would be a good idea. So, we can have the geese sound the alarm & the llamas do the fox stomping.

Another reason for getting geese would be to help the ducks eat bugs & slugs. Especially the ones that are too big for the ducks.

I am planning on having a house built for the birds, so they will have a secure place to be at night.

How much space do geese need? There may be times during the winter where they'd need to stay inside the house.

 

[goosedragon]

My geese never seemed that interested in insects, they must have eaten some as they ran across them but they never had bug hunts like the ducks would do.

 

[Windchyme]

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Mine either. They ate every fish I put in their pool though and I am sure they took in the occasional frog but I've seen them pass up bugs by the dozens. They are like horses and want grass, anything meat based is usually purely coincidental.

 

[sayyadina]

Would they go for slugs in the grass?

I'm not planning on getting more than 4 geese, all females, since I've heard the ganders can be more difficult to work around, especially during breeding season. I was originally thinking of the ducks for eating bugs, and was going to get 15, 10 runners & 5 welsh harlequin.

 

[Windchyme]

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Nope mine ignore them after they tasted them a time or two and figured out they don't like them. But ducks slurp those buggers up like candy LOL. In fact funny story about some ducks I had. They were hand raised and really tame. Whenever I went to do any kind of the work in the ground by hand they would rush over and stand at the edge of the area I was working on waiting for me to dig up worms. They would dart in there lightening quick and grab any worm unfortunate enough to have even a tiny bit of it showing. I could holler at them across the acre that I had a worm for them and they'd come as fast as they could get there and jockey for who was going to get it first. So cute. Course the geese would come more casually and hang a bit farther back to get all the weeds I'd dig up and toss their directions.

 

[Brindlebtch]

We had a darling little black duck that would help me garden. It would be right there with me the whole time and any time I came across a slug or snail I would just hand it over. I adored that duck!
Good company.