Need Housing/ Goose run advice PLEASE

[lilgosling]

We live on only an acre and have two Pilgrim geese. They are pets mostly So easy to tame, and friendly, if you're looking for a pet goose!! Anyway... I'm building a large run for them, where they will spend part of the day.. and nights locked in their "coop" inside the run. They will spend a lot of the day weeding of course (out of the run).... a big reason we got them for pets. The run will be about ten feet wide, by about 50 feet long. For the footing/flooring I was thinking about just putting down grass sod. Simply because they are like horses in a sense. Since they eat the grass... which they poop, and ta da fertilizer. So not killing the grass. Right now I always water at night.... and, high pressure spray the poop off the grass also. They are in a grow pen right now at 3 weeks.

My main concerns are keeping down on the ants, and flys.... also an easier clean up. I'm open to all suggestions, Any advice about keeping bugs away, all natural products to use.. so and and so forth! Thank you thank you!!!!!!!! A picture of my hubby with the goose of the pair

 

[lilgosling]

No one has a goose run? I'd love to hear what you've done, built, see pictures Thanks everyone!

 

[squirrelbug]

I guess you could say I have a goose run....it's 25'x50' and they are in it most of the day right now because they have 9 goslings in with them. They live on the grass, except for their "cage", which they have down to dirt. Clean up is just watering and I mow it once a week or so....I've noticed they don't like the grass real long.

Normally they would go out during the day when I'm outside. But with the babies, I have only let them out once or twice. We live on 3 acres, so we have lots of room, but we get dogs that come through every once in a while, so I don't like to have them out and about when no one is out there.

I have a metal dog kennel, I think it's about 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 that they are locked up in at night.

We used 4' no climb fencing, with wire spacing 2x4. The goslings could slide out of it for the first 3-4 days, so it was a bit stressful for me,

but we lived through it all!

Joanne

 

[lilgosling]

Thank you so much! That's good to hear. I'm very excited to get mine up and going. With just spraying the area down with water to clean.. do you find yourself needing to use anything to keep the flys down also?

 

[Renegade Rescue]

We have geese in the run with our ducks and we made shelter from on old plastic kids jungle gym and some plywood. Our run is covered on the top and 6 feet high, We have clover that grow all over and our geese seem to love being hand fed clover, we also line the side in the winter with a thick plastic cover to keep drafts off of them, to cut down on flies we have pots with basil we place around all of our pens flies seem to dislike basil. We also have provided our Geese with two plastic kiddie pools we got from Walmart for $10 each they like to splash and play in the water. Good luck ours entertain us and keep our ducks safe.

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[lilgosling]

Wow great ideas!!! Now is the basil toxic to the geese try to eat it themselves? Or are you keeping them high off the ground? I love this idea! I can do raised bed around the run! Wonderful! Thank you for the great ideas! this was my first post here and I'm so grateful for the help!

 

[Renegade Rescue]

We keep it outside their run so they cannot get to it I am new to Geese I got them in November so I am still learning from my Friends at Gone to the Birds where we get our Chickens our new baby goose and some of our ducks, the rest I get from my sister who has a small farm in central Florida. We want the basil to flourish has long has it can so we do not allow our birds access to it even though when they moved into their run our old garden plot they ate all left over vegetation tomato vines squash plants pepper plants cucumber plants and basil, but we knew they would.

Our Drake is very vocal but we have learned his sounds, and he lets all know when I get home from work. Currently he is watching over our 2 and three month old pekins in the run next to his until their goose is old enough for the job. I never really wanted the Geese at first but my sister insisted they were needed to protect the ducks she gave me and now I would not part with them they fit right in with the ducks and keep my runner ducks in line.

 

[lilgosling]

What breed are the geese pictured? They are beautiful!

 

[Renegade Rescue]

Gracie the all white Goose in the pic is a Embden Goose George the white and grey one is a Chinese and Embden mix. We just got an American Buff gosling we need to get him a mate waiting on one to come available so we can pair them up in the new duck run.

 

[squirrelbug]

Well we have several sources that draw the flies....we have chickens, the geese, and alpacas. I hang fly trap bags close to the chickens and fly strips and bags in with the alpacas. We also have a tribal casino that borders our property and their dumpster is just over the fence, and it draws A LOT of flies....the bags catch a whole bunch of them

I may have to hang a bag in the tree in the geese pen...this is the first year that they will have their own pen. Last year they had run of the yard, then I put them in the boys (alpaca) pen until Bonnie started laying eggs, then things got bad in a hurry, lol.

So we built their pen for them and all is well with the world at our "farm", lol.

Joanne