Geese eating squash plants and potato vines??

[erinszoo]

I have two geese (Embden's we think). One appears to be a male and the other a female due to their size and growth differences. We have them in a 30 x 30 pen with a pond and a duck, a turkey, and several chickens. At least three times a day we let them out to forage for grass and weeds in the yard and garden which they seem to love to do. They ate all of our old lettuce that was going to seed in the garden which was fine and one of the geese (Walley) mainly eats grass, radish greens, and plantain out of the yard. Our other goose, however, (Chrysanthemum) has started to eat carrot tops, squash leaves, and our potato vines. We put up a cage tunnel over the squash to keep her from eating it but she crawled in the end. It's like her favorite thing to do now. She won't eat any other treats that we bring to them. She doesn't want lettuce or carrot or fruit pieces or oats or sunflower seeds - she just keeps going for the squash and potatoes.

We kept thinking that if they ate it, it probably wouldn't hurt them since they've tried other things in the yard (like artichokes) and spit them out. But aren't potatoes poisonous? And will the squash leaves hurt her?

 

[The goose girl]

The squash leaves are edible, but the potato tops could be a problem. They are poisonous to people. I'm not sure whether geese react to this poison, but I personally wouldn't risk it.

All parts of the potato contain the poison solanine. The white /yellow tubers only a rudimentary amount, but the sprouts, stems, leaves and berries have a much higher concentration. Tubers exposed to sunlight develop high amounts of solanine, they turn green and shouldn't be eaten. Children have died from eating the little green potato berries.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

When we had geese, they would nibble at anything green or just anything they thought was interesting. Obviously, they thought my tomato plants were very interesting last year because they nibbled them down to the ground.