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Keeping Geese

Keeping Geese

Articles and guides to help you keep domestic geese at home, or on a smallholding.

Table of Contents:

Articles are grouped in topics as follows:

  1. Beginners
  2. Health
  3. Goose Welfare
  4. Breeding and Genetics
  5. The Kit (used in this category)

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. 

Featured Articles:

Beginners

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!

Beginners Guide To Keeping Geese

The Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Geese

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 Do Geese Eat? A Guide to Feeding Geese

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!

Geese-for-the-table

Feeding Geese for the Table

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

A poultry orchard with geese

Creating an Orchard for Poultry

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.

Will Geese Damage Fruit Trees

Will Geese Damage Young Fruit Trees?

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?

Introducing New Geese

Introducing New Geese to Your Flock

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.

Housing Geese

Housing Geese

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.  

Health

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

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,

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Goose Welfare

Breeding & Genetics

Hatching Goslings with a Broody Goose

Hatching Goslings with a Broody Goose

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.

Related Category

Geese>Incubation and Hatching Geese

goose egg incubation thumbnail

Incubation, Hatching Eggs & Raising Geese

Articles about incubation & hatching goose eggs artificially in an​ incubator, raising goslings.

Albino Duckling

Albino or Leucistic?

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

The Kit!

Equipment I've used that you will see in this category

BEC Feeders Review

BEC Feeders Review

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

Geese: Categories

Where would you like to go now?

Goose Breeds

Goose Breeds Pages

Photos and detailed breed profiles for every domestic goose in the British Poultry Standard.

General Goose Keeping Thumbnail

Keeping Geese

General articles, guides, and information about keeping geese at home, on a smallholding or farm.

goose egg incubation thumbnail

Incubation, Hatching & Raising Geese

Articles about incubating, hatching goose eggs and raising goslings.

Books

My recommendations

If you’d like a good book, here are my recommendations.