fell in love with a toulouse! Now what?

[Rozzie]

Snapping Turtles (including Alligator Snappers) and Red Eared sliders will bite the legs right off of ducklings and goslings. They will also kill them. As someone else said, if you get young birds, keep them out of the natural water sources until they are nearly full grown so they won't be as tempting a meal!

I'd suggest a non-related pair or two.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
I just recently added 4 Toulouse geese to my little homestead a little over a month ago. I had always thought having geese as pets, guard animals would be awesome. I just recently lost my two best guard dogs so the timing couldnt of been more perfect. I got a mating pair, with two of their offsprings, a goose and a gander. They were all super friendly and super tame from when I got them, I was delighted in their friendliness and even more amazed how quiet they actually are for geese! We have only an acre and all the different animals that we have all have their own areas where they are fed and housed over night, then a large common area where they all get to range during the day. We have 5 pitbulls, close to 100 hens, 6 roosters, a pot belly pig, and 8 ducks that all get along wonderfully. The geese seem to get along best with the pig since their housing quarters are next to each other, they dont mind the chickens and dogs either, but they definitely dont care for the Muscovies, they chase them around all day long, but they dont hurt them. Our property was oringinally fenced all around with chain link fencing, but with closer neighbors than we would like, we began putting up redwood fencing to keep the predators away, and also to keep the neighbors from seeing into our property. On the side of the property where we decided to house the geese, it still has chain link fencing. We got some of that black out screen that they use for construction projects, ran all the way across the chainlink which was 112 ft, then added reed fencing to blend in to the landscaping, and to keep the neighbor animals from seeing or harrassing the geese. Works wonderful at keeping the other animals from seeing and harrassing the geese, but the geese are destroying the reed!

They have also started taking down all my banana trees!

They make wonderful lawn mowers, havent had to cut the grass since, but they have also started dining on all my exotic gingers!

I feed them lots of leafy greens, flock raiser and all purpose poultry 3x a day, so I know its not due to hunger, I guess they are just bigger foragers than the chickens and the ducks.

As far as being guard geese, they do intimidate people with their noble stance and honking at the entrance gate, but the minute I let someone on to the property, they run away and hide.

I have several plastic kiddie pools around the property in which they love to clean up in and play around in, but they only do so several times a day. They love for me to spray them with the hose when I am watering the gardens or filling the pools. I definitely would of done a little bit more researching on them before bring them home and would of been more prepared to enjoy them instead of making "quick fixes" after. Do I regret getting the geese? No way! Are they everything I had hoped for? You bet!

 

[The goose girl]

Quote:
Geese should have been categorized as rodents. Or as "seek-and-destroy" missiles.

 

[TeamChaos]

So I'm guessing I don't want the geese housed near the raised bed gardens!

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
Geese should have been categorized as rodents. Or as "seek-and-destroy" missiles.

Seek and destroy missiles, yes, thats what I have!

From my short experience with geese this far, Teamchaos, housing them near the raised garden beds doesnt sound too wise, unless your willing to sacrifice the beds to the geese. I even put wired fences around the banana trees so they couldnt get to them and they have gotten the stakes out of the ground and moved the fencing. I have this stick, I call it my "herding stick" that I take with me everywhere in the yard, and its working pretty good. The minute they see me grab hold of it, they stop eating or destroying the foliage, and thats the only time I use the stick. I think they are getting the hang of it. I would nevery physically touch them with the stick, but works great to get their attention and move them along the property when they need to be moved.

 

[Hillbilly_Curt]

Last year, mine discovered at the end of that green plant, was a carrot ! They promptly yanked out dozens of them to get to the orange prize in the dirt!