i was offered two geese, a male and a female. Tell me the positive and negative sides of having a male and a female goose
What breed are they? I have 3 Embden and they are great. They are still young so no eggs yet. I love how they great me every time I walk outside and follow me around talking away. They aren't as messy as my ducks and do a great job of foraging for much of their food.
My family had three geese once. The gander attacked my four-year-old sister, and they got rid of him pretty quick. My parents wanted them to guard the chickens. It worked for a few months, until the bobcat got them. So they'd be great as guard creatures, especially if you don't have young children or keep the kids away, but they aren't bobcat-proof. I've read that they're really easy to take care of.
Geese...I love the ones I have. We just sold 3 of our little babies as this is the 2nd hatch this year for our girls. We have toulouse(sp??). 2 female breeding age and one male. Then we kept a female from the first hatch for this year. We sold the babies from last year too... They don't start laying until around 1 year old. We also have to sebestable(sp??) geese. These I think are just beautiful with how there feathers are all messed up and flowing as they walk. I don't know if I have a male and female yet or not. They are about 3 months old right now. One has a larger knob on the top of the head~~hoping that one is a male and the other female. Our geese free range all around the yard. Honk and make noise anytime someone they don't know comes in the yard. I love watching them walk inbetween the rows of the garden. They pick the weeds and teach there babies to eat the weeds too. Haven't lost a veggie to them yet. But I also started them out with weeds when they were a day old. My geese don't really seem all that messy~~minus there poop on the pourch. They love the water. Even though they have a plastic swimming pool which they have free access to at all times they love it after it rains. They bee line it to the driveway. We have one spot that constantly washes out (it's such a big/deep spot that I ripped one of the duel exhaust muffler tail pipes off of our Yukon one time). Anyway they bee line it for that spot and swim for hours and hours non stop. Swimming on top the water, diving under, flapping there wings, honking and on cloud nine. They come running when I have any form of a treat for them. All I have to do is wave a bread bag if they are in sight or call them'Want Want Want' and they come running and calling back to me.... Some people who visit are deathly afraid of them. That's ok they don't visit often..haahah and I don't tell them any different either about how nice the geese are. I just let them keep on being afraid of them.. I do have to say when they have babies or sitting on a nest, they are very very protective. Someone once told me of a male goose killing a fox while the female was sitting on a nest. My kids love the geese too (except when they are protecting there babies). They constantly go up to them and pet them, talk to them, they have even been known to swim in the pool or mud hole with the geese... I would never get rid of the ones I have. The only reason I sell the babies is so we don't get over run with geese. After all they can, do and have lived 30+ years.....That's a lot of babies if we kept them all... Shawna
Personally I prefer to raise my own geese, I love the chinese weeders (the white with bumps on their nose) and raising them around you and your family they wont be as snippy towards you. They are beautiful watch dogs, weeders, we never realized how much mowing and trimming there was until we gave up the geese. When you raise them, you are momma, poppa and socialize them so they will only keep and go after strangers. For me, winter was the tough time as they want to sit in liquid in the winter too and sozzling, splashing and all that stuff makes a frozen mess! But they can tolerate the cold ground better then hens and do not need to be kept in except on really blistery days or winter rains. Good luck and enjoy them, they will forever entertain you!
If you can stand the poop after every step they take, there is no cheaper animal to raise as they will survive on pasture. They are very nosey and love to talk.