After we finished the round up, we discussed nutrition and enrichment suggestions to improve overall care. He is a STRONG believer in geese living on grass (I got extra gold stars for my set up lol). He felt that a feed program should be 80% grass or grass hay and 20% grain supplement. He felt the 50/50 blend of Flockraiser and whole oats was better than 100% mazuri!! Yes, he said it! He pointed out the 1st ingredient of Mazuri is ground corn, which is crap. All grains should be in whole form. Oats, barley, wheat are all great. Whole kernel corn is a good optional supplement to put on weight or to provide extra calories in winter. He showed me a powerpoint presentation of feeders to recommend for birds in small yards. He felt they should be randomly scattered and filled randomly once per day. I will have to get the pics from him to post, but they basically came in 3 forms, all of which required the geese to think to get small quantities of food at a time. The one is liked the best was a homemade hanging deer feeder. The 2nd one was a box with a lid (and top of sides were cut out for bird safety) that the bird had to lift to gain access to food (then the lid had a hinge to auto close it). The 3rd was a large log with holes drilled into it. He recommended toys for mental stimulation. He prefers digestible toys, like watermelon, cotton rope, paper balls or pretty much anything you can buy for pets that can be digested. For other undigestible toys, he recommended indestructible things like kong toys. He said he does MANY surgeries to remove undigestible items like cheap plastic toys.
