Geese in the garden

[mom]

Am thinking of getting a couple of geese. Was just wondering if they are as bad at tearing up the veggie garden as chickens are. Will they eat everything they come across, especially seedlings just emerging?

[harvester]

geese are natural "grazers" so yes they will eat up your seedlings especially. It is tough picking out a good bird to go in your garden that wont destroy atleast one thing growing in there. Just last year my chickens wiped out my "salad" garden which was 5' by 5' in a single morning.
What you could do is wait till the garden is well grown up and let your geese out in the mornings on the lawn to take care of the majority of their grazing needs. then in the evening let them have about an hour to "sweep" the garden. They may be less likely to graze on the vegi growth. It works well with chickens too. Just keep an eye on them the first few times and make sure they dont start any bad habbits. Soft vegies are a good snack for any bird, lettuce etc..and as a bird its hard for them to tell that its not just some really sweet and tasty funny looking grass.

[mom]

Thanks Harverster. I have really been wanting some Pilgrim Geese and my sons asked me what I wanted for my Birthday - I used to tell them which rose to buy and from where - now all I could think of was Geese and maybe Turkey - it's nice to have simple wants

[harvester]

You are so lucky! I have to sneak my new critters in and hope that enough time will pass before a weekend comes and hubby notices so that the "granfather clause" will come into play..hahahah! Pilgrim geese from what ive heard are some of the better garden geese to have. We just had your plain ole run of the mill geese that no one wanted anymore. They would sweep our garden for bugs every evening. If we forgot them and left them in the garden too long, then they would get bored and tear up our plants. They got one hour in the evening, and they did a good job and we monitored them so there wasnt any problems. I enjoyed sitting on the back porch in the evenings and watching them.
Good luck with them!

[fancyfowl]

I did a study with ducks and geese some time ago. I used Pilgrims and American Buff geese as thats what I bred for show. I ran into a guy who tried geese in his strawberries, it was a total disaster, he did not manage them at all looking for an easy way to do something.

As mentioned geese are grazers and eat greens. you can use them best on the more mature crops. I would turn them in, huingry, and walk them thru the rows to just keep them moving, they would tend to grab mostly between the rows this way. Some crops are a lot more conducive to weeder geese. thetre is a breed called Cotton Patch geese, not hard to figure the name. smaller breeds would be more usable, like the Chinese, Romans or another light goose.

ducks are meat eaters so the would be worked similar to the geese but they concentrated mostly on bugs. runners are good for this as are harlequins or Anconas.

[mom]

Fancy, the ducks won't eat the seedlings if they are in the garden?

[fancyfowl]

oh yes they will, step on em too. I just dont think they will work with any seedlings.