How many acres of grass do I need per goose?

[denasfarm]

I dont know if I can do a divide. I have a LONG driveway into the home area and I was going to plant grass all the way up both sides and in any cleared area near the creek. I may have to supplement some corn, scratch or water fowl feed for a while. Maybe Rabbit food? Thats usually a dried hay product.

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Check the ingredients in the rabbit feed. It has a lot of things added for the rabbits that might not be so good for the geese. They make waterfowl food and a lot of people use a basic poultry feed like Flock Raiser. There are many brands to choose from.

 

[Kim65]

I think a typical pasture mix would be fine.

One thing I thought, why don't you just "mow" the area you want them in for now, brush hog, whatever, and water it good. New grasses and stuff will come up, and that is what they like. Then in late winter/early spring, "seed" the area so that it is wetted down with rains and the seeds are washed down into the dirt. Then, the new stuff will come up along with the old.

I used to cast pasture mix onto the snow when I lived in Idaho, then more snow would fall on top, covering the seeds, and it would gradually work it's way down to soil level and be somewhat buried. In the spring, it would come up furiously

.

Of course it depends on what is growing already in your pasture. Pasture mix is pretty rugged, adventitious stuff, but if you have something already that will take over the world no matter what, seeding over what's already there might not work.

If you do want to keep your geese from one area, I use plastic fencing and T posts pounded in only a little ways. It keeps geese/poultry IN, but does nothing to keep predators out. Plastic fencing is recyclable (ie, you can use it again, use zip ties to make small pieces longer, etc) and easy for us gals to haul around

 

[jojo@rolling acres farm]

My geese seem to prefer the fine stemmed grasses. They also eat clover and a really short dense sort of ground cover which I don't know the name of. It is close to the ground and sort of viney...with small oval leaves, nothing kills it but the geese like it. Our lawn is a mix of blue grass and tall Fescue - they love it. I know that TSC sells a Fescue mix the good news is it is really a tough grass and stands up to traffic and extreme weather.

 

[denasfarm]

right now I have dirt. They bulldozed about 2 acres of old forest so its from scratch.
I am going to head up either tonight or in the morning (3 hour drive) and check what the TSC offers.
I wanted to seed it before undergrowth takes over.

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Again, my words without a lot of knowledge behind them.

You might want to do a soil check - take some samples in to the extension agent or whoever does the testing to see if the soil needs anything added. The extension agent or neighbors could also tell you if there are unique conditions in your area as far as growing grass (or anything else). Sandy, clay, different soils need different things and different grasses will grow different also. The more you know before you start buying supplies the better the outcome should be.

 

[denasfarm]

Thanks I hadnt thought about that. That makes me think I need to have the water tested too. There are a LOT farms upstream and the fertilizer runnoff might be BAD!