Desert Geese?

[CollegeGirl3]

Hey all, we decided to get a goose at the end of April 2018 and he's doing great so far! Yes, I'm going to order a female as soon as our hardware store opens up pre-order. The thing is, we don't have grass because it's so hard and expensive to maintain. We've got ground cover called Australian Racer all over the place (just under 2 acres), and we keep scratch available to all our kiddos (14 ducks, about 2 dozen chickens, transient peacocks, and quail), but it worries me that I don't have grass for Randy (the goose). Is there an alternative to grass? Is the scratch okay? Thanks for the input y'all! Btw, this is Randy the Emden gander =)

 

[123RedBeard]

Does Randy eat the Australian Racer?

Find a horse feed store, and see if you can get some Timothy hay ... he may like it ... Purina Flock Raiser (crumbles or pellets) is a good basic food for geese (ducks and chickens too!) Much better than "scratch"

Make sure he has plenty of clean cool water, deep enough to dunk his head completely in/under.

I'm sure he would love a swim in a kiddie pool or tub now and then too ...

 

[CollegeGirl3]

Thanks! I'll check out the Timothy hay and the flock raiser! I've never personally seen him eat the Racer, but he attempts to eat just about any other green thing he can reach, so my guess is that he's probably tried it at some point. We've got a roughly 900 sq.ft. pond that Randy and ducks can play in, but we've also got a few tubs and an old cooler full of water that we change out pretty regularly, so I think he's alright on the water aspect ^_^

 

[123RedBeard]

Glad he has water to play/clean in!

Eventually the flock raisers 20% protein will be a bit high for him, and you can reduce it by adding in some wheat or oats ... scratch too is lower protein (but the corn in it cause him to get fat! if he eats too much)

He doesn't really need the amount of calcium your chickens layer feed probably has, even though he would probably eat it!

 

[Gray Farms]

They don't have to have grass. A good quality laying feed mixed with some scratch or cracked corn will do fine. If they don't have access to grass they will eat a lot more feed though. They will enjoy treats of lettuce and melon.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My property is void of grass way to rocky and I have two geese one is 11 the other 6 and I just make sure they get greens I get at
the grocery store plus good quality feed