Best Geese Breeds for Beginners

[DuckDuckSquirrel]

Gussy is a few weeks younger than the hens. So I suppose it helps that he had to "rise" in the baby pecking order of the time. It's also very important to have a lot of hands on interaction with the gosling when he's brought home. That way he'll have a close bond with you and will see you as the "alpha" so to speak. Makes it easier to control him as he gets into the hormonal age

Thank you, that is very good to know. I will have to make sure to spend some quality time with any geese I purchase. Are there any geese breeds you plan on trying in the future?

 

[AGeese]

The problem with geese as chicken guards is that if you raise them up with your chickens, and particularly raise a gander with them, the goose could end up hurting the chickens being naturally dominate or trying to mate with them.

On the other hand if you raise geese up separately you'll have less of this (if there's adequate space), but then don't have geese imprinted on your chickens because they're imprinted on the other geese they were reared with.

That said some have better luck than others with their LSG qualities, but don't go into it thinking that if you do "A." then you will get to "B.", it's not quite that simple, so you must be prepared to adapt to the situation and segregate and/or rehome your birds in the worst case scenario.

That said I will always have geese with chickens out to pasture. There's enough out there looking to get them so the more eyes out ready to sound the alarm is what I need.

 

[CloneFly]

I agree with AGeese, there is that possibility of a gander trying to mate with the hens. If you do get a goose, you will need to keep a close eye on him once he hits about 4-10mos. If he tries to grab the girls, you'll need to firmly let him know that's not allowed. We usually move him away from the girl and grab his beak firmly while saying "No Gussy. That's not allowed" Sounds silly, but it works. Geese have pretty good memory and will hold grudges my mom, despite being the "mama goose" to our big boy got on his bad side once... took them a while to reconcile


As for any other geese, I'm not planning on having another for quite a while- we don't have much space for 2, not to mention a goose friend for Gussy may cause him to turn on the hens. Geese can live up to 20yrs, so we have some time yet. If I do get another in the future, it'd rither be another African or possibly a Chinese

 

[DuckDuckSquirrel]

The problem with geese as chicken guards is that if you raise them up with your chickens, and particularly raise a gander with them, the goose could end up hurting the chickens being naturally dominate or trying to mate with them.

On the other hand if you raise geese up separately you'll have less of this (if there's adequate space), but then don't have geese imprinted on your chickens because they're imprinted on the other geese they were reared with.

That said some have better luck than others with their LSG qualities, but don't go into it thinking that if you do "A." then you will get to "B.", it's not quite that simple, so you must be prepared to adapt to the situation and segregate and/or rehome your birds in the worst case scenario.

That said I will always have geese with chickens out to pasture. There's enough out there looking to get them so the more eyes out ready to sound the alarm is what I need.

Thank you so much! This advice is very helpful. It is a good bit of truth that you can’t always expect a specific outcome with these things, we can only cross our fingers.

 

[DuckDuckSquirrel]

I agree with AGeese, there is that possibility of a gander trying to mate with the hens. If you do get a goose, you will need to keep a close eye on him once he hits about 4-10mos. If he tries to grab the girls, you'll need to firmly let him know that's not allowed. We usually move him away from the girl and grab his beak firmly while saying "No Gussy. That's not allowed" Sounds silly, but it works. Geese have pretty good memory and will hold grudges my mom, despite being the "mama goose" to our big boy got on his bad side once... took them a while to reconcile


As for any other geese, I'm not planning on having another for quite a while- we don't have much space for 2, not to mention a goose friend for Gussy may cause him to turn on the hens. Geese can live up to 20yrs, so we have some time yet. If I do get another in the future, it'd rither be another African or possibly a Chinese

Thank you for the reply! These sound like really interesting experiences and gives me a lot to think about. Good to know about them holding grudges!