Hi! We recently were gifted four chickens, a goose and a run. My husband built them a coop pretty quickly from scrap wood and roof tin and they still have an enclosed run. We live in South Louisiana, so ground is muddy/swampy. Weather is... very changeable, roasting in summer, cooler in winter. We have predators because we live in the country at the edge of the woods. We are new to Louisiana, we are new to keeping chickens and geese.
Recently the weather has been such that the ground at the bottom of the run is about an inch or so liquid mud, we think that this might be year round, so something we need to tackle. We use hay and dry leaves in the coop. We did have leaves in the run but mixed with the scratch, poo and stuff it really stank, wasn't drying up or mulching down, so we scraped it back to bare mud. So we have a problem with mud.
Our goose has a wide and shallow bucket of water he likes to fling everywhere. Which doesn't help.
We feed them a mixture of soaked whole corn, laying pellet, kitchen leftovers and fresh grass, clover and plants generally twice a day, on a tray in the run. Because we cant leave food out due to pests, and the goose knocking it over, like he does the water. The chickens are producing an egg each every other day or so. They spend a lot of time in their coop, but do come out into the run to feed and to scratch around. They seem contented enough, but I don't think that they are enjoying the mud or the goose.
Our goose is aggressive. He is noisy. He tries to attack us through the mesh. We cant open the door without him trying to bite us, he has bitten us. His previous owner says that he was ornery. He enjoys the rain, his bucket, the hose, his food and he likes to tell us when there is something amiss - visitors, predators, anything. He doesn't seem to be aggressive towards the chickens, although we think he is moving the brown coloured eggs out of the nest box, but leaves the blue. Its strange.
In his previous situation he was preventing some ducks from laying, which is why he was gifted to us. Along with the chickens which were going to be culled.
I suppose what I am looking for is some inspiration for the mud, which is not in the photos I have attached (this is before we scraped the mulch out that stank). Some inspiration or advice about removing the goose into his own enclosure maybe - and what that may look like. And maybe some validation that what we are doing is enough. Thank you in advance.
Recently the weather has been such that the ground at the bottom of the run is about an inch or so liquid mud, we think that this might be year round, so something we need to tackle. We use hay and dry leaves in the coop. We did have leaves in the run but mixed with the scratch, poo and stuff it really stank, wasn't drying up or mulching down, so we scraped it back to bare mud. So we have a problem with mud.
Our goose has a wide and shallow bucket of water he likes to fling everywhere. Which doesn't help.
We feed them a mixture of soaked whole corn, laying pellet, kitchen leftovers and fresh grass, clover and plants generally twice a day, on a tray in the run. Because we cant leave food out due to pests, and the goose knocking it over, like he does the water. The chickens are producing an egg each every other day or so. They spend a lot of time in their coop, but do come out into the run to feed and to scratch around. They seem contented enough, but I don't think that they are enjoying the mud or the goose.
Our goose is aggressive. He is noisy. He tries to attack us through the mesh. We cant open the door without him trying to bite us, he has bitten us. His previous owner says that he was ornery. He enjoys the rain, his bucket, the hose, his food and he likes to tell us when there is something amiss - visitors, predators, anything. He doesn't seem to be aggressive towards the chickens, although we think he is moving the brown coloured eggs out of the nest box, but leaves the blue. Its strange.
In his previous situation he was preventing some ducks from laying, which is why he was gifted to us. Along with the chickens which were going to be culled.
I suppose what I am looking for is some inspiration for the mud, which is not in the photos I have attached (this is before we scraped the mulch out that stank). Some inspiration or advice about removing the goose into his own enclosure maybe - and what that may look like. And maybe some validation that what we are doing is enough. Thank you in advance.
