Average weight of geese, predators?

[downtime]

I'm still pondering weeder geese (or even pet geese) for the farm we eventually hope to buy. We do own our own business, and sometimes we get home later at night due to specific events. Since I'm not sure where the farm will be, I'm assuming we will have at least fox, raccoon and coyote for furry predators and hawks, owls and other smaller birds of prey for feathered ones. Since they will be weeders, they will be semi-free range in the day (we will fence off the fields we want them in with some type of fence, possible even electric). I'm still metally trying to design the fields so that each "flock" of geese would have about an acre, and would have the rows oriented to the water sources to encourage them to walk between them not on the crops. Within each "pen" would be a "house" (shed) of some type built to keep out predators. I'm also thinking that we would move them in closer to the house in the winter, to a more accessible location for us (to keep water open, feed, etc), and would create a more indoor/outdoor, smaller pen for them there. The winter quarters could be completely enclosed (not like a building, but fully fenced, top included).

I'm pretty sure I have the structure partly figured out, using layers on the inside and out (to protect the geese) with razor type wire in between for predators that get past the outer layer (I saw a photo of a coop that had sheetmetal bent back and a predator got in-I'm thinking sheet metal inside and outside to keep the geese from contacting it, then something sharp and unpleasent in the middle of the sandwich in case the predator got the outer sheet off). This would allow air circulation, but keep my geese safe (r).

Here's where the weights come in. I'm confident that geese are pretty intellegent and if the average dog or cat can learn to use a pet door, they could too. Since I can't insure we would be home before dark every night to deal with the night time predators, I'm wondering of we could devise some type of door (into the shelter) that would be activated by the geese/weight. I think there are pet doors or feeders like this. The problem is if the geese and predators weigh the same! We wouldn't be able to use the ones that are "collar" activated, since I'm sure the geese wouldn't like that and I'd be afraid of strangulation anyway. Any thoughts?

 

[fancbrd4me02]

There are automatic doors for henhouses that open at sunrise and close at dusk, so as long as your geese were trained to go in before dark, they would be safe.

 

[NapoleanGoose]

If they get used to going in at dusk, they'll go in for a automatic day/night door. My geese don't have an auto door but will go in every night at dusk and if I get there late, they come out of the shed to scold me and have me re-tuck them in.

About the collars, I know someone nearby who breeds geese and has collars of some sort on a couple of her's, maybe you should contact her? I thought of collars on mine when I got them, but learned that their necks expand when they eat and thought better of it, but she may have a special collar or one of a different material or something. I've never heard of those pet doors but they sound neat.

You can see the collars at the bottom of this page: http://www.windchyme.com/Images/Chickens/Geese/D%20Toulouse/index.htm
And this is the home page of the website: http://www.windchyme.com/

Hope that helps!
Sierra

 

[downtime]

Hmmm...interesting options. I didn't know about the day/night doors, that would make sense. If I can't figure out some type of isolating system that lets only the geese in, those would work also. They would work better if we had goslings as well, since the weight based ones wouldn't do much for them!