[Creagan]

Too many Christmas food programs on TV have got me fired up about getting into geese.
We have about 4.5 acres but half of it is very rough- mostly heather with patches of rough grass. The 'good' half is grass, currently heavily grazed by sheep but they will be evicted in the new year once the fence is up (they're not my sheep!)
I'm planning to divide the good bit of land into three paddocks. There is a ditch running down one side of the land which hardly ever dries up, so hopefully that will supply water for the birds most of the time.
I'm thinking of getting maybe half a dozen birds in the spring, with the aim of having them ready for Christmas- just for family and friends, initially, but I would consider going commercial if I found that I could support a decent number of birds.
I have a local poultry slaughterwoman so that side of things is covered.
Main questions are:
- do I need to provide housing?
- will they need additional feed or is the grass going to be enough?
- any advice on a suitable breed?
- what arrangements will I need to make if i want to go away for a week in the summer?

Thanks for any help

[bucketman]

Hi sorry but am no help but how big a piece of land would you give over to them and do you put netting over the top of them or clip there wings to stop them flying away

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Yes you do need to provide housing for them and yes they need additional food. They need housing to protect them from foxes and from bad weather. Here is a page explaining how to keep them.
http://www.ashtonwaterfowl.net/keeping_geese.htm
I hope this helps.

[Creagan]

Thanks, that's an interesting link. It sounds as though I shouldn't need much extra feeding- the plan is to buy in the birds in about April and have them on people's tables for Christmas- so the bulk of the time I have them they will be on grass. If they get to slaughter weight in good time, I would put them in the freezer in advance of Christmas.
Looks like mixed grazing is necessary, to keep the sward length down. I'll probably get in a few sheep next year as well.
Didn't know they needed housing. How much space are we talking? If it has to be a fixed house, I could put it in the middle of the three paddocks, and herd them in each night.

[HesterF]

I've got an 8x6ft shed which has held up to 12 geese in reasonably comfortably - got seven at the moment and they have loads of space. My geese NEVER go in for bad weather - they and the ducks will stay out in anything - but I put them away at night so they don't provide temptation to the fox to break into the run (they are in a fox proof run) They are the only bird I keep that will not go into their shed until I go up to put them away - even the ducks go in once it gets dark enough. They are probably pretty intimidating to a fox but if you've got them in an open paddock, I would run an electric wire or two around it, even by day, just to be sure-  unless you're happy to risk losses (but once they've had one successfully, they'll be back for more).

No need to have any netting over the top - most domestic geese can't fly or at least fly well enough to go far (and if they do start to wander you can clip wings). My young goose could fly early spring this year but is now too fat to get off the ground and this year's hatchings haven't even tried.

As for breed, I think it depends what size you want to eat them at! I guess a big breed like an Embden or just commercial geese. Like any other poultry, commercial geese have been bred to reach a good meat weight and relatively quickly. I've got West of England which would probably make a decent meat but don't really fill out until their second season and are only medium sized geese anyway (and unusually are worth more alive than dead!).

You could keep loads of geese on that acreage - mine (the seven) keep the grass down at the moment in an area about 2000m2 but that's in winter. In spring a pair didn't keep up with 400m2 of grass. I think the suggested minimum area is 100m2 per pair. But I do always have supplementary food available too - normally growers pellets although I switch to breeders in the spring (which you wouldn't need to worry about).

They are really trendy at the moment for Christmas so I think you've got a good business chance there. As poultry goes, they're the easiest and cheapest to keep, and it's a decent business model to buy them in as growers. They're hard to hatch so avoid that if you can.

I'd say if the grass is short to begin with and you have the right ratio of geese to grass, you don't need mixed grazing. Mine will keep it down equally (don't go for nettles or thistles though) but once they fell behind, we had to mow a couple of times. You also don't need to rotate in the same way as sheep although it does help to break the worm cycle - just not quite as critical unless you're very intensive with them.

Good luck!

[Victorian Farmer]

We used to do about 100 and I liked them .They are no bother I would open up the ditch whith sleepers make suitabul housing .The most important keep 7 or 10 for eggs .Then you have a good suplie for breeding .Problem for us we went for pilgrim all hatched then 1 easter afternoon we had a blizard and it killed them .Then the breeding stock got stolon. But you would be paying £40 for a goose this christmas sales best place to sell. Grass till late october then mixt grain all the best.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

What about brecon buff geese or Toulouse geese. A couple of years ago there was a gorgeous Toulouse female, in lay, goose for sale and my father was about to buy her, but I talked him out of it as I didn't think I had anywhere to keep her, I really regret not buying her now.

[hughesy]

Geese have got to be the easiest birds to keep. We've got a group of 14 Embdens here. They have an open sided shelter to use at night within a small run made from heras fence panels so it can be easily moved. They mostly choose to sleep outside only really using the shelter for nesting. They lay very saleable eggs from about valentine's day till about the end of april and sometimes in the autumn as well. Ours range over about 8 acres but in reality never stray more than about 100m from home. They keep the grass lovely and short and don't make a mess like ducks do. And best of all the only feed they get is a few handfuls of mixed corn at bedtime to encourage them back into their pen. They can be noisy but usually only when something's bothering them. And they can't fly more than a few yards so don't need their wings clipping.

[darkbrowneggs]

I was breeding a line of Tufted Old English type geese.  Auto sexing and with a little tuft of feathers on the top of their heads.  They were nice and quiet friendly type of goose - though the males protect the nest when the females are laying.  I sold the flock on to a farmer just on the Herefordshire border with Wales.

[bucketman]

So am I right in thinking that you keep the Hens for eggs and the Ganders for the table. Or both can go for the table. Also a few people have said they done quite a few and sold them on at xmas, So can I take it you dont need all the paper work that goes with Livestock

[devonlady]

The only difficult thing about geese is plucking them! But even that is made easier by having some companion pluckers.
I have Toulouse and wouldn't be without them, and, no, they don't need any paperwork (yet) and they have become very trendy as a Christmas bird (thank you Hugh F-W) and need little else but grass until mid-October when mine have either rolled barley or wheat with an occasional treat of sunflower seeds which you can grow yourself.
They make wonderful watchdogs, most people are afraid to walk past them, but are no match for a fox.

[bigchicken]

My active would be research the market, find out about potential outlets, customers who would buy, start small sell only the best at a fare price and cultivate a good reputation, easy peasy.

[Creagan]

Thanks for all the info everyone
I have a couple of local leads I can follow for actually sourcing the geese, but before I go making a fool of myself a couple more questions...
- what age birds should I be buying in? I see you can buy goslings that are only a couple of days old, but might it be possible/better for a newbie like myself to get slightly older birds?
- is it possible to run a mixed sex gaggle, and if not, will I have to separate out the ganders at a certain stage? I don't believe you can easily sex birds when they are young, can you?

I'll need to ask some of the sheep-people around here about foxes, as well. I've never seen one around here but that doesn't mean they aren't out there...

[devonlady]

Oh, they are certainly out there! So make sure your geese are safely away before dusk and let out well after dawn. Geese need to be killed at around 24 weeks old otherwise they will be tough. Plenty of good grass and a bit of rolled barley, boiled spuds, milk and growers mash and they will do you well. They are well worth guarding against foxes.

[Womble]

Hi Creagan,  I saw this thread before Christmas and made a note to reply after Christmas day once we'd had our goose!

Ages for buying are just the same as chickens really - everything from eggs to day-olds to off-heat etc, and paying correspondingly more the older they get.  If you have the gear for brooding them, day-olds are very easy to keep.



Just watch to make sure they have enough space, and that none of them get bullied (watch for bald patches where fluff has been pecked away).

Also make a conscious decision re whether you want them to imprint on you or not. We found this sort of behaviour fun for a couple of days, but soon realised it wouldn't be quite so entertaining with fully grown geese, so we nipped it in the bud pronto!:



In the end it turned out they were imprinted on my muck boots and not on me, so all I had to do was wear different coloured wellies for a month and that sorted it! 


Oh, and they'll talk about you behind your back too  .



If you buy from a large hatchery, they'll be able to sex them at a day old (if you miss your chance then, it's hard to be sure until they're nearly adults).

Ours are commercial embden type geeese which we bought through Craigievern Poultry in Drymen a couple of years ago. Apart from their tendency to gnaw through things, they've been ridiculously easy to keep. We bought them at Easter, and by the end of the summer they were about 3/4 grown, fed on mostly grass:
 




We ate or swapped most of these two Christmasses ago, but retained a trio for breeding. This was very successful, and the next year the girls each laid one egg every two days from March to July.

Here's the tricky bit though - The biggest of ours this year came in at 3kg dressed weight, and the smallest 2.25kg. They were lovely and lean, with hardly any fat over the breasts. However, our local farm shop sells geese between 4kg and 6kg, and I don't know how he does it!  . 

I have no idea whether theirs are a different breed, or just fed differently, so I'd love to hear comments on this. For instance, do I need to bring in some meatier birds to cross with ours, or should I change breed entirely?  Any thoughts?