Short term food option

[Briandugas]

I was hoping my first post would just be to show off my geese...I'm a first-time geese owner. I purchased two Pilgrim geese from Metzer and they arrived on July 11. They're now 6 weeks old and doing great. I was raising them on Mazuri Waterfowl Starter. I read the book by Kimberly Link, The Ultimate Pet Goose Guidebook and she highly recommended that brand. Well, the geese are doing great but I ran out of food and I tried switching to Purina Flock Raiser crumbles, but the geese just won't take to it. It's been days. The geese have been getting plenty of outside time, daily, to help me cut my grass. I give them romaine lettuce and they attack it/me like savages they love it so much! I worry I'll give them too much. I found a farm supply store to order me some Mazuri waterfowl maintenance but it won't be here until Monday. I'm looking for food to help hold them over. They're going to be outside the majority of the next 3 days so I know they'll eat plenty of grass, but I worry they won't get enough protein. In that book, the author mentioned bringing cat food to feed wild geese since it's high in protein. My geese have taken a liking to my cat's food bowl so I'm making sure they don't get more than a snack or two a couple times a day.

Any suggestions on other options between now and Monday? Or is the cat food enough to hold them over? There has been no change in behavior over the past few days, so I don't think they're hurting or suffering. In fact, they're slowly growing more independent and going out for longer swims on our neighborhood pond. When I go say hi they swim right back to me hoping for a treat. They're happy geese, overall, from what I can tell.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My geese love dog food I buy grain free salmon and pea and give it to my birds as a treat. I think they would all eat just dog food if I gave it to them. But geese are grazers so if they are getting plenty of grazing they should be fine until Mazuri arrives I believe it's @Iain Utah that mixes FR with with Mazuri hopefully she'll see the tag. Keep trying with the FR maybe make it into a soupy feed and see if they will eat it I feed Fermented feed and my geese love it. It's been wetted with warm water and ACV to ferment.

Neighbor hood pond that sounds kind of dangerous?

 

[Iain Utah]

I am a huge fan of Mazuri maintenance. I mix Flockraiser and whole corn with Mazuri, although my dewlaps get extra mazuri. But, they will survive on FR and corn if the feed store runs out of mazuri. I had a blind goose for a long time who would only eat mazuri, and simply refused FR and corn. So if I ran out of mazuri, I would give her fresh corn on cob, romaine, and watermelon to get by. Even then, she was not as pleased with the fresh fruits/veggies as she was for her mazuri. Luckily, my feed store is wonderful and I RARELY run out.

If your geese are on fresh grass, they are getting plenty of protein and nutrients without any grain supplement. In fact, I worry that people overfeed grain to growing geese, causing many developmental problems. Your geese will be fine without mazuri for a few days.

 

[TSOWOATNKC]

Grass gone to seed is a favorite around here. Yesterday I put out "duck bombs" I made for our flock. The geese loved the Bok Choy/Lettuce, the ducks loved the oatmeal.

 

[Briandugas]

Thank you, everyone, for putting me at ease. I tried soaking the FR with no luck, making it damp, no luck...they just don't seem interested. I guess if they have all the grass they can eat they'd rather pass. Lot's of weeds that sprout up through the grass and lots of seeds in those as well. They don't discriminate and will try to eat anything green.

My house/yard borders one of our neighborhood ponds. The pond is fenced on 2 sides and the 3rd side has houses. The most trouble they can get in to is eating my neighbor's grass. One of my neighbor's put a half-height iron fence along the water's edge to keep his dogs or kids from getting in the water. I may do the same so that mine can't go in the water during the day when I'm at work. I take them on kayak trips a few times a day and they stay by my side. They were too scared to get in the water before I left them on the shore. I just finished painting my goose house today so I'll be able to lock them up at night when we're not taking our 10pm kayaking trips on the water. With the full moon the past few nights, it's been perfect for late night adventures.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Goose heaven!!

 

[Gray Farms]

Off topic but are you neighbors prepared for the noise geese make? They are quite now but geese can get very noisy when they are grown. And you have very close neighbors. I hate to see you bond with your goose babies only to have to rehome them due to neighbor complaints.

 

[Briandugas]

I've been talking to my neighbors to prepare them. I got pilgrims because they are among the most mild mannered. Our town has tons of these little 3 street neighborhoods with ponds so we have Canadian geese everywhere. We're all accustomed to the honking as they fly in and out, or just completely bypass and fly over. Some neighbors complain about the Canadian geese poop on the sidewalks but mine won't be a contributor to that issue. I know geese honk when startled but there's not much to startle them in my back yard. The only Canadian goose to come by lately was run off by my two. But it wasn't an agressive chase, more of just a 'hi how are you let's hang out....wait why are you going away?'. So mine followed a bit but gave up. With the routine pool parties my neighbors throw, we're all pretty tolerant of each other. In a worst case scenario I could let them live indoors when I'm away at work and let them out in the mornings and again after work. That's what we've been doing for a month anyhow and it was like having a dog.

 

[Gray Farms]

Sounds like your set for dealing with the noise then.

You'll wanna be sure your geese can't get near the Canada geese and preferably get contact with their poo. Avian Influenza is contracted from wild waterfowl.

 

[Briandugas]

Thanks for the tip! Didn't know that. I'm thinking my geese will claim ownership of my backyard and keep the others away, but I'll be on the lookout.