Feed costs

[Leader Bee]

Thank you Lydia, I only have a small garden so I wanted to plant meadow grass mixed with clover in it for them, but I was planning on supplementing it with grain too.

 

[Miss Lydia]

They will like that! Soft grasses are much better for geese. Clover sounds good too. Keep us updated.

 

[Leader Bee]

Well I have a couple of months to get the garden into proper shape for keeping geese and I wont be able to get hatchlings until at least March or April so there'll be no updates anytime soon.

 

[Leader Bee]

I'm having a little trouble finding numbers on the square footage or metre's squared worth of pasture needed to support one goose; does anyone have a reliable figure please? I just measued the garden and I have 30m3 available - most of the information out there seems to be geared towards people raising geese as a business or as part of a farm.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I'd look for The Book of Geese by Dave Holderread he is the best and his book will give you tons of information. It's a complete guide to raising a home flock.

 

[Leader Bee]

Thanks Lydia, I just ordered this - Is there any other literature you reccommend?

 

[Miss Lydia]

This is the only book I have on geese. I have used it so much it's dog eared. I don't really think you'll need another but you could go to the learning center here on BYC and find information too. Have you decided on a breed?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/category/other-fowl.25/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/geese-sticky-topics-index.497391/

 

[Leader Bee]

I started looking at pilgrim or brecon buff but there are no breeders nearby that I can find; so I finally settled on Tolouse; I can travel maybe 2 hours to a breeder where I can get some hatchlings next year

 

[Miss Lydia]

I believe you'll like Toulouse I have a female Toulouse she is a nice goose.

 

[Leader Bee]

Yeah, I heard that they are one of the more docile breeds, which is great; Although i'm not really bothered about sex it would be nice to get some eggs from time to time, aren't they some of the more difficult to sex breeds? I.E colour doesn't give them away? I'm not sure tolouse can be sexed from very young?