Geese eat hay?

[nao57]

What the heck. I was watching youtube videos on raising geese. And one of them shows geese eating out of a bale of hay (of some kind).

I didn't know they would do that. It was surprising.

I don't have geese. But if I move out of the city I might try them. So I wouldn't have suspected people could feed them hay bales.

I feed my ducks totally different stuff than that...

Since it came up does this mean its cheaper to feed them hay bales than something else?

(This was from a hickorycroft farm channel on youtube...one of them.)

 

[Callender Girl]

While my geese will gladly nibble at hay bales meant for the sheep and goats, they also nibble at my clothing, plastic water dishes, metal dog crates. Geese, like little kids, will investigate everything by putting it in their mouths.

My geese love to eat grass and, well, just about anything that's growing in the yard, but I would not advise regularly feeding them hay as their daily diet.

 

[Percheron chick]

Geese are grass eaters and can easily subsist on grass when conditions are right. Only natural for them to replace the grass with hay when grass is deficient. Costwise it's a bit cheaper. Mine eat 1/2 to 1 pound hay a day.

 

[Callender Girl]

My geese like tender grass, so maybe it's just my grass hay they don't care for? Although Gussie and Golly have free access to the bales when they are free ranging during the day, they have no real interest in eating it. It is a pretty rough, stemmy mix, which works fine for the goats and sheep. On the other hand, the geese will trample the ducks and chickens when they see the all-flock. Perhaps I have just spoiled my geese.

 

[Isaac 0]

Fresh grass is anchored into the ground, so when pulled by the geese, only the top portion comes off. With hay, there is no "anchor" so, in some occasions, birds may eat very long strands, which can result in a crop, or GI tract impaction. For that reason, I don't allow my geese, to "graze" on the hay. Of course, there will be exceptions, but it's a definite consideration people need to take before just throwing a hay bale out for them to eat.

 

[Percheron chick]

Not all hays are created equal just as pasture isn't. Long stemmy mature pasture is undesirable as a forage for geese. Thus the recommendation to mow and turn them out on pasture when it is only 4-5 inches. Hay is a broad class of dried and baled forage. It can be anything from a late cutting high calcium tender and leafy dairy alfalfa all the way down to peanut hay which is no more then baled peanut vines. Hay is predominantly harvested for cattle and horses so what works for my horses doesn't always work for the geese. You have to select hay based on who is eating it. The geese do not touch the lower quality grass hay that the horses munch on in the winter months to help keep them warn. Throw out a high quality grass alfalfa and the geese are battling with the horses to pick out the best bits. They are in greater danger of being trampled by a horse who doesn't want to share than the hay.
When I was first getting my geese, I went online to gain more information and came across Metzers website. They had pictures of their pens and they were feeding baled cornstalks. Now I can't imagine feeding those but they do. Even in Holderread's The Book of Geese, it mentions feeding corn stalks.

 

[Goosebaby]

I can’t get mine to eat any kind of alfalfa, they just won’t even try it, on the other hand I think I spoil them, other than grass they get all flock, scratch mixed in, a whole pumpkin weekly or every other week, along with whatever treats like romaine, cabbage grapes, blueberries, apples, pears and tomatoes. I guess they just don’t like the peasant food and know they’ll get something better if they wait.
When I was still growing corn they liked snatching the less tough leaves off the stalks. I can’t imaging a goose wanting to eat the stalk unless they’re desperate or they have a taste for something tough and unusual.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

My fowl and chickens happily pick through our grass hay. They especially love oat hay when I can find it. Some of them like to put. The grass in water so I leave a shallow wide rubber tub near by

 

[Percheron chick]

My fowl and chickens happily pick through our grass hay. They especially love oat hay when I can find it. Some of them like to put. The grass in water so I leave a shallow wide rubber tub near by

Where are you? Producers (Greeley) and Centennial (FoCo) usually have big bales of oat, oat/pea or oat/alfalfa. I think it went around $150/ton last week.

 

[PatriciafromCO]

Where are you? Producers (Greeley) and Centennial (FoCo) usually have big bales of oat, oat/pea or oat/alfalfa. I think it went around $150/ton last week.

All the way south off I25. Thank you they really love the oat hay.