Goose Housing Questions

DuckDuckSook

Songster
Jan 20, 2020
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Southeastern PA
My Coop
My Coop
Hi there!

I've been looking into geese and I have some questions about housing. I've seen some people use coops and lock them up at night while others just have 3 sided structures and the geese don't even go in at night. What is your personal experience? Do geese need to be locked up at night or could they just nest inside our run-in building with our sheep? Just trying to think about future plans. Thanks in advance!
 
That's a good question. Currently I lock mine up every night but my husband thinks that they would be ok in the yard with our ducks. Watching.. :pop
 
In regards to shelter, a 3 sided building is fine, some geese wont even use it but the option is there for them. In regards to somewhere to lock them up for the night, I suspect that is more for their own safety from predators during the night.
 
Leader Bee is right, locking them up at night is really for their protection.

Some use a shed or small building which is better for insulating them from the cold in harsher environments but those don’t have as good ventilation, a simple three sided structure has better ventilation but isn’t as weather proof so it’s whatever works best for you in your area.
Simple structures should be within a fence ideally, geese aren’t as flight capable as their wild counterparts so their main defense is bluff, making a predator think they’re tougher than they are. It generally works against small predators like skunks or sometimes foxes, but not against bolder or urbanized foxes, raccoons or larger predators.
 
Our sheep shed is within a fenced in acre of land. I have 4 chickens and will be getting ducklings this spring. I plan on housing my chickens and ducks together in the same run and coop. I was wondering if the geese need to be in a run as well. We do have hawks that have gone after the chickens. Would hawks go after the geese if they were free-ranging in the fenced in acre?
 
I have red tailed hawks and goshawks in my area and I haven’t had an issue with them bothering my geese yet, I think a goose is just too large and intimidating for them to want to mess with and for that reason geese are great for scaring them away from ducks and chickens if you keep geese in the flock.
Some people keep geese with their ducks/ chickens without issues but from my own expierience it isn’t a good idea, none of my geese will tolerate ducks, they’re pretty violent towards them. I don’t have chickens so I can’t say if they’d fair any better but I doubt mine would like them either.
Some hang cds and reflective streamers as hawk/eagle deterrents, for chickens I’ve heard it’s also good to have brush or some extra places to shelter under when they see aerial predators and that can help minimize losses also.
 
Thanks for the info! I might try some of those deterrents and I am thinking about getting some goslings and raising them with the ducklings. Do you think that would help them get along better long-term?
 
Thanks for the info! I might try some of those deterrents and I am thinking about getting some goslings and raising them with the ducklings. Do you think that would help them get along better long-term?
That will definitely help, growing up with ducks will make they more friendly, it isn’t a guarantee that everything will always stay friendly but it’s the best method.
 
Hi there!

I've been looking into geese and I have some questions about housing. I've seen some people use coops and lock them up at night while others just have 3 sided structures and the geese don't even go in at night. What is your personal experience? Do geese need to be locked up at night or could they just nest inside our run-in building with our sheep? Just trying to think about future plans. Thanks in advance!

Ours get locked up at night, it's a peace of mind thing. They're also protected with an electric fence because we have a stray dog/fox/raccoon problem, so it's one less issue I need to be worried about.
 
So I'm definitely going to lock them up at night. Any tips on training them or wrangling them up to get them into the coop? Also, do you allow your geese to free range all day or do they stay in a run? I was hoping to have them free-ranging during the day but don't want to put them in danger if it's not safe. Thanks so much for all the advice!
 

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