Keeping Geese

[Kazie]

Hi All! I am thinking of getting some geese (my parents are actually)& they were wondering which breeds & how many would be suitable. Their property is on the south coast of nsw, the geese would be contained in a fenced off orchard, about an acre in area. They would be sharing this space with chooks (although the chooks would be in chicken tractors most of the time). There are quite alot of foxes around & we were wondering how geese would cope with this. They would be in fox proof coops at night. Also would a bath tub suffice for their swimming needs?Any advice at all would be much appreciated! Thanks :)

[pippimac]

I haven't had geese for years, but maybe 4 geese and 2 ganders. In the wild they mate for life and if the f:m ratio is too high things often get out of whack, as ganders seem to have a couple of 'favourites' and other geese will be left out. Ganders get on ok together, generally.
Geese don't HAVE to swim, although they'll be much, much happier! They MUST have a pretty large, deep, clean water-source to bathe in.
Be warned, most breeds fly very well! You will need to clip a wing, or maybe try Sebastopols, which have 'curly' feathers and can't fly.
Geese are noisy, so keep that in mind if the orchard's near your, or more importantly, the neighbour's house...
I also recommend checking out Muscovy ducks, which graze, but are virtually silent. Tasty too.

[sun burn]

Ducks are lovely (i've recently got some) but perhaps the noisy geese will be able to serve as warning of foxes. I hear that geese are territorial.

[sun burn]

I"m thinking about geese now. Just a couple would be nice. How big would that water thing need to be? Would a wheelbarrow be big enough? I've got one of those already. With Geese, do you have to feed them extra food or will grass and insects be enough for them? Will two geese be too noisy on a one hectare property? I guess if we found them too noisy, we could put them in the pot. (boohoo)

Are Geese good eating?

Now i have to find somewhere to buy some.