# Geese pros and cons



## Blue Sky

I’d like to try geese. I don’t know much about them. They would have an acre and a half of orchard and yard to share with a dozen free range chickens and bird safe LGDs. They could further access 4 acres with a seasonal pond used by sheep. A goose coop and a pool are in the works  I was thinking 5?
2 ganders 3 hens? What breeds?


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## Jesusfreak101

That's enough hens for one gander. They would love that size. The one problem I see is when their hormones kick in. I have very docile Toulouse geese moat of the time they are with chickens, ducks, goats, a cow, some pigs and they get along fine. Everyonce i  awhile they get bossy and bite someone. But when homoronrs come late winter early spring they will beat everyone and have nearly killed both ducks and chickens if not seperated. They will also attack our dog, cats, the goats , pigs, and calf. So younwpuld need a place to seperate them at. Oh and females will fight over eggs when nesting so you will need to watch that. They also will abandon their nest after one hen hatches her eggs. Once they hear babies the leave the eggs to help raise so make sure to have an incubator ready. I had a girl hatch three goslings then leave the nest and more where hatching took them out in incubator all but one hatched. They make great mothers they will even accept chicks and ducklings but they are horrible while nesting. I heard of them fighting and stepping on babies over whose nest it was. Mine haven't done that but they will fight over how many eggs they have. I gone out and found the hens sitting on the same nest instead of their own nests. They also eat alot. Make sure you can change the water regularly i also have 50gallon troughs they get in and out of. And hatching make sure they have a low water and small pool to get into like a feed pan will work for goslings.


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## Jesusfreak101

I have had geese going on 4yrs they are lots of fun. Oh and they tend to love to steal your favorite plants lol. Also just because a breed says they can't fly doesnt mean your birds can't fly. All of mine i have seen fly above 30ft in the air for over 5 minutes and land just because they felt like it. The cooler weather does excite them and they don't go in a coop very often mine prefer staying outside even in bad weather.


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## Blue Sky

Oh  I forgot to add I’d like a dual purpose breed. I don’t expect a lot of eggs and I’m guessing processing a goose is similar to ducks.


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## Jesusfreak101

It is and its not lol ducks are easier. I processed both and chickens and geese i have yet to be able to pluck clean even with dipping them in water. Something about their Downey feathers i can't get to come out on the belly towards their vent its. I always get half done then nothing will come out if there is a trick I would love to know it i tend to skin them at that point.


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## Blue Sky

An elderly black lady taught me how to pluck ducks when I was five. She always pulled against the growth direction of the feathers and singed anything that wouldn’t come out or trimmed bits. Her praise was far better than my plucking deserved


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## Jesusfreak101

Yeah ducks and chickens i can do but even doing it against the growth didn't work for my geese.


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## Jesusfreak101

Do they get cranky during mating season juat curious as mine do. Our will eat out of our hands expect for mating season when they think they have to hide and bite all lol. They don't bite us but they gone for then other animals. But I would agree they are good protectors however mine only protect the ducks but i have a large chicken and duck flock . Along with a smaller goose flock current goose number is at 8 geese three adults 2 four month olds and 3 hatchlings. Was up to 12 at one point but we sold four.  The larger the goose flock we had the more they get overly bossy with the other birds and animals that i have noticed.


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## Jesusfreak101

Oh and you said something about eggs once they go broody they dont lay again for that year. My experience anyways on that. From left to right chicken, duck and goose egg. That's a quarter just to help with size comparison geese eggs are huge this one is actually a smaller goose egg from a first time layer.


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## Blue Sky

I’m hearing the theme from Jurassic park.


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## Jesusfreak101

Lol got distracted but why??


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## ccnelson1954

Blue Sky said:


> I’d like to try geese. I don’t know much about them. They would have an acre and a half of orchard and yard to share with a dozen free range chickens and bird safe LGDs. They could further access 4 acres with a seasonal pond used by sheep. A goose coop and a pool are in the works  I was thinking 5?
> 2 ganders 3 hens? What breeds?


Look into Sebastopol geese.  They aren’t cheap and maybe hard to find but I think they are beautiful and have some advantages over other geese.  They can be quite friendly when handle from young, they do not fly well and aren’t as noisy as other geese.  My friend has two and they are soooo sweet.


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## Ridgetop

Geese are wonderful.  And sooo tasty.  Geese are excellent guardians too.  Like guinea hens they will raise a fuss if strangers come around.  If you get them as goslings, they will bond to you.  EXCEPT some of the ganders can be very mean and aggressive, particularly to strangers.  There are lots of different breeds.  Some better for eating since they are meatier than others.  Geese are all dark meat.  Geese MUST have water to be able to eat.   Use a 5 gallon bucket for watering geese instead of  a shallow pan.  They have to be able to submerge their heads in water to swallow food.  That is why their water buckets get so dirty.   A pond is optional but they enjoy it.  If your orchard grows grass under the trees that is ideal.  Geese were traditionally raised in orchards since their main diet is grass and plants.  They are excellent guardians and protect the fruit from thieves while grazing on the orchard grass.  Geese are still used in avocado orchards in California, particularly in organic orchards where pesticides can't be used.  

I usually skin my geese when butchering  It is easier than getting out the pin feathers.  My grandmother told me that the easiest way to remove the pin feathers is by brushing a thin layer of hot melted paraffin over them and then pulling them out by peeling the wax off.  Like waxing your eyebrows, ladies!  That was back in the day when you put up jam and jelly by covering it with a layer of melted paraffin wax.  All farmhouses had a store of it.  I think you can still get it but I haven't seen it in grocery stores recently so might have to order it on line, 

If you decide to use paraffin, melt it in a tin can in boiling water and be *very careful*.  It is highly flammable.  DH's cousin died when her canning paraffin caught fire and the blaze trapped her in her kitchen.  My Gammy told me lots of scary stories about people being injured or killed by accidentally igniting paraffin while canning. 

Actually an old Scout trick for campfires was to take a cardboard egg carton and put sawdust or shavings in each of the holes, then cover them with liquid paraffin,  Cut the little squares apart and use them as starter to light your campfire.

We had several breeds.  The Chinese Crested were the most aggressive.  One friend was a large woman with bright red hair.  That gander would chase her from her car to the house every time she came over.  She was the only one he hated.  No idea why!  He was a good guard though, raising a ruckus when strangers appeared.

We also had Pilgrims.  I really like them.  They were very calm.  If you don't know how to sex waterfowl Pilgrims are easiest because the ganders stay white and the geese are gray.  LOL  Otherwise, an easy way to tell sexes apart is that ganders carry their necks out straighter while the goose carries hers in a graceful S curve.

My favorite for eating were the Brazilian geese or Muscovy ducks.  Not truly one or the other.  They are rather ugly with their red wattled faces, and they fly very well.  They will roost or perch in trees or on top of the barn. 

My grandfather had a flock of geese when I was young.  He was the only one who could go inside the gooseyard because the gander was so mean and aggressive.  It sounds funny, but geese are big and powerful and they like to grab you with their beaks, then use their wings to beat you up.  They can really injure people, especially children.  Geese can break bones with the power of their wings.  

I still like them though.  If we ever have a pond, I am definitely getting more geese.


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## Jesusfreak101

I got all excited about waxing my geese then you ruined it the the fire talk... I would so be the one to do that i am severally accident prone. So i 'll pass on that. And the African geese and Chinese around us are the more aggressive ones that i have seen. I avoid them personally. I have to remember that about the pilgrim geese.


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## Ridgetop

Actually, why not buy the cosmetic waxing strips from the  drug store.  I think you heat them in the microwave to use them.  I'm not sure about those, only know that my youngest made a terrific mess with some wax strips on the bathroom counter.  I don't think they catch fire, since you wouldn't apply them boiling hot to your eyebrows!  LOL
It might take a lot of them to de-pin feather a goose though!      Post pix if you go that route!


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## thethinkingweasel

This is my husband's input: 

We have fairly polite Africans and Chinese. Our Embdens are the ones that try to pick a fight. Source: Murray McMurray for all of them. We generally won't put up with genuinely mean birds on this farm; the stew pot is always hungry. However, with geese, if they are genuinely being physically threatening toward you, there is a simple trick: they are terrified of long sticks. You don't hit them with the stick, you just waggle it. They'll treat you like a person would treat you if you had a loaded assault rifle pointed at them. This is very effective for herding them, or simply getting very threatening geese to leave you alone. My mother discovered it using a golf club as the waggle stick, inspired by pictures of goose girls from the 1800s, who always had a long staff. 

In addition, there is a specific wax available called duck wax. This is the wax that is professionally used for stripping the feathers off of water birds. It's stickier than paraffin. Advice is to scald and pull as many feathers as you can initially in the first scalding, then dip the bird in the duck wax in its own separate pot of hot water (you put the duck wax in hot water so that there is a layer of wax floating on water; you don't directly melt the wax). Then throw the bird in cold water to harden the wax. When you rip the wax off, it takes the pin feathers out very effectively.


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## thethinkingweasel

I would add that the geese are the easiest animal on the farm to take care of, because they totally feed and water themselves (we have a little pond for them -- the drainage pond from the barn, which we enlarged so they can easily swim in it -- and they also share the goat and sheep's water tub in the paddock). We keep scratch grain to throw to them every now and then, but other than that they are complete grazers. Ever since we lost half our flock to coyotes about a year ago, we keep all the geese in the barn at night. They quickly learned after that incident to gather near the barn at dusk, and we herd them right into their stall. We don't give them water in the stall; they're fine going the night without it and then they have plenty of access to water during the day. Maybe our geese are fatter than some, but I've never seen them fly more than a few hundred yards. They wander all over our farm together and make a very picturesque sight in the grass. 

All of our geese will hiss when you come too close, but they quickly back off if you keep approaching. The only time I've been actually a little nervous is with one of our ganders who has gotten extremely protective over the two goslings they managed to hatch this year (between two geese sharing a nest!) He is serious about keeping those goslings safe. We had one -- our Embden gander -- who would always threaten the cart when we drove around, but ever since my mother-in-law accidentally ran into him (because he refused to back off) he seems to have learned his lesson. He still limps, over a year after that incident, and has earned the name Gimpy.


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## JimLad

I had Embdens until a few weeks ago.
Id say that they are as smart as any dog and until the gander took a slice off the goat's ear, quite harmless.
They were rescued and I've had them for years but given that I have grandkids and there are toddlers next door, they had to go.
They are cranky when one of them is broody.
Have complex family structures and the gander can be extremely loyal.
They will readily adopt if the dominant female allows it and hand raised birds will be your friends.
More than one gander for a flock your size would be a problem.
I had no idea how much grass they were eating until now.


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## Ridgetop

Where do you order the duck wax?


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## thethinkingweasel

Ridgetop said:


> Where do you order the duck wax?





			CC ONLY - Wax ( Remove Feathers )
		









						Purchase Traub Supply duck wax online
					

Purchase Traub Supply duck wax.




					www.traubsupplyduckwax.com
				




You could search further. We got these right on the first page from Google. It's expensive up front, but 10 pounds goes a long way. When you're done with it, you throw it back in to melt and pour it through a screen to get the feathers out. You'll be able to reuse a lot of your wax this way.


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## misfitmorgan

We have geese as well.

We had a male/female pair of toulouse, until something took our male. While we had both they wanted nothing to do with us except some corn now and then. They hissed every time we got within 15ft, and the gander would wait for you to turn your back then try to run up behind you to bite you. After awhile we came to an understanding the gander and I, he leaves me alone and I will leave him and his g/f alone.....come at me when my back is turned and you will become a goose football. After those few "talks" he became fairly mellow towards me though still hissed.

After the gander was gone the female actually became slightly more friendly to me and didnt hiss until i got within 3ft of her. She thinks she is a goat at this point. She grazes with the goats, and herds with them, sleeps with them.

We got 5 goslings last Sunday. Boy was she excited...she was over there sticking her head in the pen and talking up a storm to them goslings. She has decided whenever i feed or water the goslings she needs to be there to keep me "in line" and make sure I dont hurt them. The goslings act terrified of me which is odd because they seemed fine with the lady I got them from.

We have not butchered any yet but i'm looking forward to trying goose.


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## Jesusfreak101

If she hatched them they probably imprinted on her. We had gosling that have done that. But once they meet the adult geese and spend time with them they change on that. And if the female hisses at you while your there she partly teaching them that your not ok. You can try to feed them and her from your hand while you sit quietly and they will learn to be calmer with you. Granted my gander had a few talking to himself. But when he put of breeding mode my 2yr old can pet him and feed him from his hand.
He a pretty cool guy most of the time. We had him for 3 yrs now maybe four can't quite remember but he learn over time the rules and what i will allow. If he gets out of line I just have to say not yell but say knock it off and he does. Geese are very smart and will learn they just need lots of time. I have one female i can go out to her nest and look under her and also whem she has babies she doesnt attack me even when i handle them my dh though they don't like him but he.deserves it he likes making them mad.


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## misfitmorgan

Jesusfreak101 said:


> If she hatched them they probably imprinted on her. We had gosling that have done that. But once they meet the adult geese and spend time with them they change on that. And if the female hisses at you while your there she partly teaching them that your not ok. You can try to feed them and her from your hand while you sit quietly and they will learn to be calmer with you. Granted my gander had a few talking to himself. But when he put of breeding mode my 2yr old can pet him and feed him from his hand.
> He a pretty cool guy most of the time. We had him for 3 yrs now maybe four can't quite remember but he learn over time the rules and what i will allow. If he gets out of line I just have to say not yell but say knock it off and he does. Geese are very smart and will learn they just need lots of time. I have one female i can go out to her nest and look under her and also whem she has babies she doesnt attack me even when i handle them my dh though they don't like him but he.deserves it he likes making them mad.



She actually didnt hatch them her goose flock hatched and raised them i think she just spends a lot of time with them out on pasture. I wouldn't say they were cuddly with her by any means but they didnt freak when she was close to them. I did try to corn trick, no takers as of yet lol. Our adult female wanders around wherever she wants to do same with our goats. The new goslings are in a pen until I am pretty sure they decide this is home and that our adult girl won't beat up on them. She talks to them a lot but they all stand on the other side of the pen and talk back, so they might be scared of her im not sure. They are about half her size atm and a cross of white and grey toulouse.


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## chickens really

I'm scared of Geese although I have tossed around the idea of having about 3 ? I'm only in the thinking phase at this point. I sold off all my Chickens and Ducks this spring so not sure about Geese because of the poop and winter care. Do Geese eat hay in the winter? What do they eat? 
I know they eat lots of grass in the summer. What breed is the most docile?


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## Jesusfreak101

They do eat hay well mine do all year around. And geese can be very docile when handled often its just well atleast in my experience during the mating season which start in Jan (for us) and ends in june(once again for us) that they get aggressive for mine that is mostly hissing at you and calling you dirty names. Mine know better they got taught and have reminders that i will eat them if they miss behave. My kids are told to chase them until they give in and also if gander feels like challenging them to kick or hit him with a stick my kids are 7-2 who do this. Granted gander only like messing with the ones old enough to be scared of him which  is why they do that. My 2 yr old he is terrified of with out the insintive lol. During this i am right there but you cant back down from them if you do they get more what the word assertive with you. It took my 7yr dd1 to chase him for over a week to fix the probelm of when she would run from him and he would chase her. Now it's the opposite. That being said when he isn't a b××× he will eat out of our hands and wants to be petted. We have Toulouse geese but those are the only ones i have experience with outside of the wild Chinese and African geese and Canadian geese i have met which of course were bossy lol.


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## Ridgetop

I think Pilgrims are one of the calmest breeds.  The males are white and the females are gray which also helps in deciding which ones to butcher.  LOL  Our Pilgrms were very sweet.

Chinese Crested are not very tame, and the ganders can be aggressive.


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## Finnie

Ridgetop said:


> I think Pilgrims are one of the calmest breeds.  The males are white and the females are gray which also helps in deciding which ones to butcher.  LOL  Our Pilgrms were very sweet.
> 
> Chinese Crested are not very tame, and the ganders can be aggressive.


Is a Chinese Crested goose the same as regular Chinese goose? I tried to look it up but did not find any other Chinese goose besides the regular Brown and White ones.


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## Ridgetop

The ones we had were called Chinese Crested because they had a large orange/red crest on their heads.  The crest on the female was small but the males all have large ones.  The crest is not made of feathers, but is rather an extension of the beak material that goes up above their faces in a form of crest.  Our Chinese Crested were white with red/orange feet, bills and crests.  The gray, or black and white Chinese Crested have black feet,  bills, and black crests.


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## Finnie

Ohhh, I see. I thought that was called their “knob”. My male’s knob (or crest) is much bigger than my females’. I was under the impression that the knob functions much like a comb in chickens. 

I found someone who has been looking for Brown Chinese geese but could only find white ones. I am going to trade my browns for her whites.


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## Ridgetop

I guess that is what it is called.  The term for the breed is Chinese Cresteds though.  I don't know why.  The gander we had was extremely aggressive.  Are your brown ones aggressive?


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## Finnie

Ridgetop said:


> I guess that is what it is called.  The term for the breed is Chinese Cresteds though.  I don't know why.  The gander we had was extremely aggressive.  Are your brown ones aggressive?


The lady I got them from raised them like pets. She said they loved to eat dog kibble from her hand. I tried it once, and one female got brave enough to come up and eat out of my hand. She also said the gander would always follow her around and goose her on the butt. (Is that where that term came from?😂) She made it sound like that was a friendly behavior, but I will not be encouraging that. 

My gander has not been mean. I did have an issue with him protecting his two ladies when spring came and they started laying. I did not back down from his charges. Instead, I charged him back and gave him a few rolling lessons  with my foot. Now when he “protects “ his flock, it is a token effort. So I would say he is mildly aggressive, but with restraint. To be fair, right now he and his two ladies are raising 10 ducklings, so I’m glad that he is protective. I expect that once they are done raising their babies, he will go back to the gentler personality he had when I bought them in January. But then, that could have just been because he was new here and hadn’t established it as his territory yet.


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## Nao57

ccnelson1954 said:


> Look into Sebastopol geese.  They aren’t cheap and maybe hard to find but I think they are beautiful and have some advantages over other geese.  They can be quite friendly when handle from young, they do not fly well and aren’t as noisy as other geese.  My friend has two and they are soooo sweet.



So does this mean its possible to raise geese in town? Or is that suicide? 

I wonder if its possible to find a way to raise them in city limits or not? Maybe this breed you mentioned would work?

What do others think?


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## misfitmorgan

Nao57 said:


> So does this mean its possible to raise geese in town? Or is that suicide?
> 
> I wonder if its possible to find a way to raise them in city limits or not? Maybe this breed you mentioned would work?
> 
> What do others think?



Not as noisy does not by any means mean quiet. So it would depend on your neighbors. It you want quiet poultry look into muscovy ducks. They can't quack, at most they hiss and they have some pretty colors you can get. Only down side is they can fly so would need their wings trimmed fairly often, The french whites we had flew more like chickens, short flights not really going any where but i know lighter muscovy can migrate.


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## Jesusfreak101

Some geese can fly as well my Toulouse geese can. And they can be loud when the get excited which is generally when they seem me , water, food or anything strange lol.


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## The_V's

Thats 


Blue Sky said:


> An elderly black lady taught me how to pluck ducks when I was five. She always pulled against the growth direction of the feathers and singed anything that wouldn’t come out or trimmed bits. Her praise was far better than my plucking deserved


how I do it! Ive never had a problem plucking ducks or geese. In fact Id hate myself for skinning ducks and geese since half the flavor comes from the fat in the skin marinating as it cooks. I skinned two ducks for dinner once it was terrible and nothing was different about the way I cooked them EXCEPT the fact that I skinned them instead of plucking them for a change.
Jimmy hasn't quite gotten the hang of plucking yet lol but he tries so that counts


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