Beginner advice

[reneekay]

I've raised ducks, chickens and turkeys and always wanted to raise geese. Any advice, or is there a website or book that is really good to learn from?

 

[JRies]

You'll get addicted. I started with geese to protect my runner ducks from hawks found out geese like geese. But fell in love my geese who are more interactive than the ducks. Geese are more grazer than opportunist. Best lawn mores I ever owned. I belong to a facebook group Geese101 great place to figure out what breed fits you the best. I raise Production Africans but have some Dewlap African's coming this year.

 

[Goosebaby]

Raise them like dogs, meaning spend the same amount of time with them as you would your dog and they’ll adore you! Also you can pair males together or females together or males + females together without to many issues, ganders can be argumentative with each other in the breeding season but not always, I have a few sets of ganders that get along just fine.

Geese are waterfowl but the great thing is that they aren’t as messy as ducks, at least my geese aren’t as messy as my ducks, I have 4 ducks who currently go through as much bedding daily as my 11 geese. That might not be true for everyone I suppose.

Ganders can be very parental, they’ll adopt goslings that aren’t theirs and even ducklings!

Geese seem a little less instinctual than ducks, they’re a little smarter and can learn more words, they like routines, are very individualistic, and can even be picky eaters so it’s good to introduce a wide range of foods when they’re young, though even still you’ll get some who just don’t like certain things.

 

[Leader Bee]

I agree with Goosebaby, raise them like dogs - if they see you as part of the family they'll very likely not be aggressive towards you and will love you to bits. My advice, stay around the forum and ask lots of questions, join some of the Facebook groups like Raising Geese 101 and probably pick up Dave Holderreads book of Geese as i have found it very informative https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3152102-the-book-of-geese

 

[3xhhheather]

Geese are waterfowl but the great thing is that they aren’t as messy as ducks, at least my geese aren’t as messy as my ducks, I have 4 ducks who currently go through as much bedding daily as my 11 geese. That might not be true for everyone I suppose.

Same here, I had to separate all the ducks from the geese for a day (our yard was loaded with hawks) and at the end of the day all the water buckets on the goose side were still clean.