Keeping only Ganders

[Iain Utah]

I have a pair of adult ganders that get along just fine. My toulouse are quieter and more docile than my africans. I live in northern mountains of Utah in extreme winter climate and my geese live outside 24/7. In winter, (per Holderread's recommendation), I feed my geese high quality horse grass hay (timothy/meadow grass), whole kernel corn and rolled oats. They do just fine outside, even in -0 F temps.

 

[catahouladog]

Thanks All. I can keep the geese inside the barn at night and it should help with the noise. During the day I think it would be fine since most of the neighbors are at work. All their dogs bark during the day when we are outside anyway so what's some geese honking? We also get harsh winter with snow covered. This year our total is over 10 feet and the ground was covered from Jan to March.... It is good to know what else I can feed them. We'd have alfalfa on hands because of our goats but I think fresh food would be nice especially if we have long winter. I won't be getting them anytime soon anyway so I'll have time to plan better.

 

[cutechick2010]

Wow, I spent all night reading on feeds for geese especially during winter time. I have concluded that it is impossible to keep geese! Of course that is not true...Keeping goats is hard enough and geese seems even harder. For one, there doesn't seem to have a straight geese feed (supplement anyway) I can purchase...not in my area anyway. Many people here are feeding them chicken feed for different stages. And for winter time when there are less grass or no grass...especially areas with snow and harsh winter (that's us here), there are even more decision to make for feeding.
So..what do you feed your geese...especially winter time (if you get snow covered too...) What are some fresh veggies/fruits I can feed them? I am not too hung up on the store feeds because as long as I can feed fresh food and with correct minerals/supplement, the geese should be fine, right? After all, they don't have store bought feeds in the wild! Just like my goats, during their growing stage, they'll be getting goat feed but will be on alfalfa/mineral/kelp as an adult. ??

Also, are the sebie and toulouse more quiet breeds? We live up in the mountains but our neighbors are not too far from us.

While this is true, please do remember that domestic birds do need more maintenance than wild birds. Domestic geese were bred to grow larger and faster than the wild geese do, and need more nutrition to do so or they can have growth problems. What a lot of people do is feed their ducks, geese, turkeys etc the meat or broiler chicken feed. This feed is a little more expensive than the egg layer chicken feed, but geese are incredibly feed efficient and really don't eat much for their size. I would say that letting them graze on grass, kitchen scraps etc would be fine, but probably would be a good idea to give them a little commercial feed as well until you figure out a good home made feed mix. Don't worry, it really is not nearly as complicated as it seems! LOL

 

[crazy goose lover]

Mine love cabbage and apples in the fall and bcoccoli and cauliflower stems in the winter. In the summer they love tomatoes and melon of any kind. Some people stock up on pumpkins and squash to feed over the winter but mine don't care much for that.

 

[cutechick2010]

Mine love cabbage and apples in the fall and bcoccoli and cauliflower stems in the winter. In the summer they love tomatoes and melon of any kind. Some people stock up on pumpkins and squash to feed over the winter but mine don't care much for that.

Really? That surprises me. I have never tried feeding pumpkins to geese (alas, it has been a couple of years since I had any geese) but I feed pumpkins to my chickens, goats, and rabbits and they all love them.