Geese for Weeding

[The goose girl]

IMHO, geese are excellent weeders and lawnmowers. Only problem is, if you don't watch them 24/7, only fairly large trees are safe from their razor beaks. Two of mine took down a 7' rowan tree in just a couple of days - they left only a stub.

What they prefer and what they leave alone can change in an instant. Left to their own devices, they act like Agent Orange on anything within reach.

 

[Baybrio]

Thanks goosedragon and The goose girl. I guess I'll have to fence them away from my pitiful little trees. Goosedragon, spruce are indeed the evergreens that grow the little light green tips in spring, I thought the geese might like those.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
So true! however I have never seen or heard of geese that attack pine trees. ~gd

 

[The goose girl]

Quote:
A couple of months ago a guy on a Danish waterfowl forum complained that his geese were eating his pine trees. He sat himself down with a hand held horn and sounded it when they touched the trees. The geese just looked at him and continued destroying the trees.

I could link to the thread, but as it is in Danish, I doubt anyone in here would read it.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
A couple of months ago a guy on a Danish waterfowl forum complained that his geese were eating his pine trees. He sat himself down with a hand held horn and sounded it when they touched the trees. The geese just looked at him and continued destroying the trees.

I could link to the thread, but as it is in Danish, I doubt anyone in here would read it.

Could be, is Danish anything like German? The other comment is that spruce and fir trees are often confused with pines by people (in fact the Danish word for pine is fyr is it not? ~gd

 

[The goose girl]

Danish is not a whole lot more similar to German than English is to German.

The exact species these geese were destroying was Nordmann Fir - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abies_nordmanniana

 

[Baybrio]

I have deer repellent that is made to spray on trees and shrubs - might that work to deter geese?

 

[Omniskies]

I think people are going about this the wrong way. Geese do an amazing job at weeding a garden - even a small garden - you just have to be smart about it.

We section our garden off into plants that are safe for the geese to be around at any given time. They do great with tomatoes, but once they know what a ripe tomato tastes like, they can't be kept there any longer. Until then, let them weed your tomatoes for you. They do a great job with corn, but again, you have to have them in the corn area at certain times. Young corn plants are going to be gobbled up, but larger, established plants (you know, the plants that have grown large enough for you to give up on weeding and just accept it's a lost cause) love geese.

Potatoes are completely safe for geese. They don't dig up the roots and ignore the leafs. Onions are also safe.

I do things a little differently with my weeders and bug munchers. Instead of letting the adults into the garden, I keep my goslings _and_ my ducklings in the garden. The ducklings will run around munching on bugs, ignoring the plants. The goslings will happily uproot any sprouts they come across. They are small, so there's no worries about them trampling anything. Last year I had over 100 ducklings running the garden and 50+ goslings.

This year I will be tweaking my design so the adults can get in there, too. I have 4x8' plots in my garden. I will be running cattle wire around the outside so the adults can reach into the patch and munch on the weeds, but not actively climb inside of it. I lose the benefit of having their manure in there, but don't see that as a big deal.

You don't really "train" geese to weed a garden. You set up your garden for your geese and reap the rewards. That is a lot less work than standing over them with a stick or bending over to pluck the weeds yourself.

I have an article about it up at http://omniskies.com I have no idea when I last updated the article, but it should still have some decent information in it for anyone interested in using weeder geese.

 

[love_a_duck]

thanks for the link omniskies.
very sensible approach?
(uh, any pics of this happening, it sounds like a riot?)

Beth

 

[Omniskies]

No, but I really should have taken pictures. The videos of the ducklings snoozing and snatching up bugs under the potato plants would win adorable awards.

I was able to dig up a video that was sent to me of a pair of my babies that went all the way to Texas to their new home. Duke and Miss Kitty are a few weeks old in the video and are happily eating the mostly nonexistant weeds that are in their starter garden. They opted to just sit out with their goslings and supervise rather than divide up their garden: