Hello everyone, I've got some questions I hope you can answer about geese. I currently have a flock of 7 hens, soon to be expanded to 10, fenced on 1/4 acre, and I am considering adding either a duck for eggs, or some meat geese to raise for next year's holiday season. All our birds are free range but with appropriate and suitable housing, and we have 4 dachshunds who they will have to tolerate. I have read all about ducks and how messy they are, and I have a thread over in the duck section about whether it's a good idea for my husband and I to keep ducks based on our landscaping and koi pond. My question is, do geese behave just like oversized ducks? Are they just as messy and possibly destructive to an ornamental pond as a duck would be? Or are they worse? Or better? We have a 900 gallon koi pond, and though I would love to see ducks or geese splashing in it and eating up all the summer string algae, I'm concerned about the poop and possible damage to our koi and other critters who use the pond (frogs and toads mostly). On a smaller plot, what is the realistic feasibility of keeping waterfowl? Thank you in advance for all responses!
Geese are grand creatures, but they are pooping machines. They are grazers and eat quantities of vegetation. This results in lots of excrement.
Geese will eat all of your lovely landscaping and will swim in the koi pond and load it with sticks, dirt, rocks and poop. They have flat feet as do ducks and if kept confined in a small space will quickly trample the grass to nothing. geese need to graze for 90% of their diet, need water with their food just like ducks, and deep enough to dunk their entire head and clear their nares. ducks and geese are both nice. Not all breeds of duck lay well or a lot of eggs in a year. Geese are seasonal layers and have a breeding season. Ganders will become protective of their mates and nesting areas and can be aggressive with dogs, humans and other birds over this space they claim. Geese are easily trained to routines and to be put up in the evenings. Which is a must as they are just as prone to being killed by predators as your chickens.
I kept weeder geese once. I wanted them to weed my strawberry beds. I hadn't counted on the mountains of poop they would leave behind. The gander was very aggressive and tree'd my twin girls up a swing set once before I rescued them.
