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Articles and guides to help you keep domestic geese at home, or on a smallholding.
Articles are grouped in topics as follows:
Keeping geese can be very rewarding, although it seems they have gone out of fashion at the moment. They have a reputation for being aggressive, and most gardens do not have enough grass to keep them or have neighbours who wouldn’t appreciate the noise they can make.
Not all geese are aggressive, though, and if you choose geese that have been raised by hand and handled regularly, you will find they can become very tame. Naturally, the stakes are raised during the breeding season, and ganders will take everything as a potential threat. What else has he to do except to guard his goose while she sits on her eggs?
If you choose the right breed and number of geese for your set-up, then you’ll have some eco-friendly lawnmowers and delicious free-range eggs to eat or incubate from late winter to mid-summer. Domestic Geese don’t require a pond; in fact, they spend most of their time on land, eating grass, so a plastic water tub that can be tipped out and re-filled with fresh water will work well for them.
As well as keeping grass short, geese make fantastic burglar alarms. They have excellent eyesight for things out of the ordinary.
Keeping geese is not difficult, considering they are fairly self-sufficient, needing only wheat, fresh water, grit and as much grass as you can give them. If there is a good supply of grass available for your geese, they won’t need much additional feeding, but if the grass is short, you will need to supplement it with other greens like lettuce or cabbage. Despite popular belief that foxes don’t trouble geese, they will, so you need to keep them safe, particularly at night.
From the beginner’s guide, to choosing equipment, housing, feeding and choosing the right type of birds for your setup, these articles should cover all you need to know to get started raising backyard chickens!
This beginners guide to keeping geese will take you, step by step, through the basics of keeping geese, whether you are wondering whether geese are the right choice for you or if you have already purchased your geese and want to learn more.
What do geese eat? What they eat in the wild, tips on what to feed geese on your local pond, and what to feed domestic goose breeds kept at home. Everything you need to know about feeding geese!
From hatching to 3-4 weeks of age goslings should be fed on Goose / Duck Starter Crumbs to get them off to a good start. Goslings
Traditionally, in Europe, people kept poultry in orchards. Chickens and waterfowl would eat insects and fallen fruit, and geese would keep the grass short. Droppings helped provide nutrients for the trees, and the trees provided shade, shelter and safety.
Orchards are a popular place for geese; they provide shade, and geese can keep the grass short, especially in hard to reach places, but what if you’re planning on planting some young fruit trees? Will geese damage young fruit trees?
If you acquire one or more new geese, you may want to add them to an existing flock. Introducing new geese can be tricky at times. They are intelligent birds and often form strong family bonds that need to be respected when making introductions.
Providing you can give sufficient space, adequate ventilation and security from nighttime predators, a goose house need not be complicated. In this article, Mo provides the low-down on housing geese.
Geese are generally quite robust, so with good husbandry, we can keep them healthy. Geese can get worms from time to time, especially gizzard worm, so it’s worth picking them up from time to time to check they haven’t lost weight.
Gizzard Worm or Amidostomum Anseris are thin worms about 2cm long that predominantly affect geese. Infestations occur directly by birds eating eggs passed out in droppings,
When I was a small child back in the seventies we had a family eider down. It was a hand me (eider) down from my
Whilst it is possible to have one gander to many geese in a flock, the chances of getting a high percentage of fertile eggs from all
December is a busy time for most of us. With short days and colder weather, the last thing on my mind is my spring incubation
One of the easiest ways to incubate and hatch goose eggs can be to leave it up to a broody goose. Not all breeds are good mothers. Heavier breeds can be quite clumsy and better at breaking eggs than sitting on them, but many lighter breeds will sit the term, hatching and raising their young.
Articles about incubation & hatching goose eggs artificially in an incubator, raising goslings.
A goose will build a nest and start laying eggs. The question is, should you remove them? Or wait for her to lay more? And how do you know when a goose is ready to incubate her eggs?
Most of us have a mental image of an albino; a bird or animal that is completely white. To complete the picture accurately we should
I took delivery of a large box of feeders from the manufacturer BEC and have been testing them for the last 4 months in a
Photos and detailed breed profiles for every domestic goose in the British Poultry Standard.
General articles, guides, and information about keeping geese at home, on a smallholding or farm.
Articles about incubating, hatching goose eggs and raising goslings.
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