The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: sweep on May 03, 2009, 08:23:13 pm
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Hi every one
i am looking for some information and advice on keeping geese especially through the winter! not a problem for most of you but our winter here in British Columbia is long and hard, our chickens wont go outside between November and march with night time temps of down to minus 40c and day time highs of minus 25c with 4or 5 feet of snow.our chicken house is insulated and heated to keep it a couple of degrees above freezing so we were wondering if we could keep geese in the same house even if we have to separate them with wire mesh, the other thing is even if the chickens are warm enough roosting the water still freezes over night how important is it to a goose to have water to bath in? or do they just need it to drink ?
any information would be appreciated.
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Hello
I am sure that geese, like ducks, don't actually need water to swim in but they do need drinking water and something that they can suberge their head into to clean their eyes/heads. Glad we don't have these temperatures to endure. The first time I went to Canada it was December and I have never felt as cold as that in my life.
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exciting winters and i got excited over a foot of the stuff. Geese will cope with a big bucket so as you said they can dunk there head in. thou they love to paddle we had a ditch turned into a pond by them over winter they loved it. do you have a barn i think a coop is a bit cramped for them. our have coped with the snow and temps down to -10oc there house disintegrated in a strong storm.
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our "coop" is 12feet by 8 feet and 8 feet high with 4 inches of insulation in the walls 6 in the foof and 4 inches in the floor and double glazed windows! will the hens share or should they be seperated?
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the geese can get grumpy. we had one trying to kill one of our hens thou the other five geese then jumped the offender and stopped her.